Engine-Room Hits Escalate: 23 Ships Struck Near Hormuz in Two Weeks

At least 23 ships were attacked in or near the Strait of Hormuz in the first two weeks of October, and at least five of them took direct hits to their engine rooms. That's a step change in both volume and severity, according to data from naval groups in the region and alerts from security consultants.

Engine rooms are the wrong place to get hit. Impacts there can start fires and leave a vessel without power or propulsion — repairs run to months, not weeks. A ship out of service for that long is effectively removed from the global fleet, which matters because vessel availability is already one of the tightest constraints in the world oil market.

What does this change for shippers and owners?

Middle Eastern producers haven't blinked yet. Kpler's preliminary data puts the seven-day average of Middle East oil exports fractionally above prewar levels. Iraq said Monday its exports are approaching prewar numbers, and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that Hormuz shipments are running at about 80% of normal.

The barrels keep moving. The ships carrying them increasingly don't come back.

Several shipping and maritime security officials, speaking anonymously because of the topic's sensitivity, reported increased engine-room damage and a higher overall volume of incidents. They stopped short of saying Iran is deliberately targeting engines. The hardware shift, though, is telling: Iran has moved toward missiles rather than drones, and infrared-guided missiles steer toward the hottest parts of a ship while carrying larger explosive payloads than drones carried.

Phillip Belcher, marine director at Intertanko, the tanker industry's main trade group, was blunt: "What we're seeing is an increase in the frequency of attacks, and therefore, more damage in engine rooms and disabling fire."

Echoes of the Tanker War

Anyone with a long memory in this trade has seen this pattern before. During the 1980s Tanker War, Iraq and Iran targeted tankers' engine rooms to disable them. Some of those attacks caused fires and explosions that sank vessels, and dozens of damaged or sunken ships lingered in the northern Gulf for years afterward.

The current campaign is producing casualties too. At least two recently hit vessels sank last week, including a container ship struck in Hormuz. After it went down, Pakistan's Hydrographic Services reported containers floating adrift near the UAE — a drifting-cargo hazard for anything else transiting the area.

The September data shows how fast things escalated: zero attacks causing engine damage that month, against at least five in the first half of October. For context, at least seven engine-room hits on non-Iranian vessels occurred across previous months. The US, for its part, has also targeted engine rooms when disabling Iranian ships to enforce its blockade. It's a popular technique all round.

Rates and crews

The commercial math is unforgiving. Fewer available tankers means higher transportation costs for energy. For a few days this month, hiring a supertanker in some parts of the world cost more than sending a rocket into space — a comparison that shouldn't be possible in a functioning freight market.

"In a region where few owners are willing to put ships in, every VLCC hit is material," analysts at Oil Brokerage Ltd. wrote in an Oct. 19 note, referring to very large crude carriers.

Crews are absorbing the sharpest end of the risk. One recent attack on a bulk commodity carrier struck the bridge and the accommodation block where the crew sleeps, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center.

Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer at Bimco, the world's largest shipping trade group, explained the grim logic: "Attacks often focus on the engine room or the bridge of the ships as it maximizes damage while keeping the risk of an oil spill relatively low. Sadly, there are significant risks of crew injuries when these areas of the ship are hit."

Forward look

Flows through Hormuz continue, at roughly 80% of normal by the US Energy Department's count. But attacks on engine rooms will do little to draw owners back to the region, and each struck vessel stays idle longer while under repair. With missile use rising and export volumes holding, expect the effective tanker shortage — and with it the cost of moving a barrel — to keep climbing.