Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, a deputy chief in the Iranian armed forces, put vessels on notice Thursday that any passage through the Strait of Hormuz without authorisation from Tehran would carry consequences, while also stating that the country stood ready to counter hostile threats through updated equipment and the skills of its younger personnel, according to a report citing the Mehr news agency.
Sayyari described the naval arm of the Iranian military as holding a substantial foothold along the eastern approaches to the Strait of Hormuz, with monitoring and operational authority over that stretch of water — a claim that U.S. Central Command had previously pushed back on, disputing assertions that Iran exercised control over the passage, which serves as a key conduit for global oil shipments.
Ahead of a late-February military operation involving U.S. and Israeli forces against Iran, the strait had been carrying approximately one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
A maritime official's account, carried by a broadcast news outlet, placed two vessels — a container ship and a dry bulk carrier — at the bottom of waters near the Strait of Hormuz that week, each having sustained projectile strikes in unconnected episodes.
Ship incidents near the Strait of Hormuz had grown more frequent over recent days, with Iran reported to be weighing options following the imposition of U.S. port restrictions and sanctions measures against it. One television network carried a report claiming the nation had devised new tactics for striking ships, with the stated aim of sustaining elevated oil prices before the United States held its midterm elections in November.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia appeared to be drawn into the broadening hostilities across the region. Two regional officials told a broadcaster on Wednesday that the headquarters of Aramco, the Saudi state-owned oil company, sustained a nighttime strike attributed to Houthi forces operating with Iranian backing.
Offices belonging to Aramco's chief executive and other senior leadership sustained damage in the Dhahran attack, though no deaths or injuries were recorded. At an earlier point, the Houthi movement had put forward Dhahran as a target, while media outlets operating under Houthi control attributed airstrikes on the Yemeni capital to Saudi Arabia.
Survey data pointed to the Republican Party facing a weaker-than-expected showing at the ballot box, with voter frustration over energy-driven price increases cited as a contributing factor. Retail fuel costs, pushed upward by petroleum supply strains tied to the armed conflict in the Middle East, played a notable role in pushing the U.S. inflation rate higher than analysts had anticipated in the previous month.
Brent crude futures slipped on reports that the administration was weighing a relaxation of restrictions on the network of vessels used to move oil and petroleum products out of sanctioned nations such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Loosening the rules that govern vessels operating within what has been called the shadow fleet was one idea on the table for bringing freight costs down and taking some pressure off oil prices, though it remained far from certain that any of those measures would move forward.
