Two tankers hit in the Strait of Hormuz: one crew member killed, one missing

The Gibraltar-flagged tanker Hercules Star was damaged in the Strait of Hormuz on September 9, with one crew member killed and one missing. The Panama-flagged tanker New Andros was hit the same day.

The circumstances of the attacks and the weapons used were not immediately clear. The incidents fit a series of attacks on merchant ships in the strait since the US–Israeli war on Iran began in February and since Iran and the US imposed mutual navigation restrictions.

The price of passage

Each new incident raises the war-risk premiums shippers pay to transit the strait, through which roughly a fifth of global oil trade passed before the war. Some companies have stopped sailing through Hormuz altogether.