A Maltese-flagged container ship has been struck by a projectile while travelling through the Strait of Hormuz.
The crew of Safeen Prestige was forced to desert ship, shipping sources said, after being hit about two nautical miles north of Oman.
British maritime risk management company Vanguard said: ‘The vessel was struck by an unknown projectile just above the waterline, leading to a fireplace within the engine room.
‘No environmental impact has been reported at this time.’
The UK Maritime Trade Operations told Metro the ship just isn’t British.
A couple of fifth of the world’s oil is transited through the shipping lane, which splits Iran on one side and Oman and the UAE on the opposite, and links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea within the Indian Ocean.
Concerns have been raised about just disruptions to the flow of Gulf oil shipments to Europe, the US and Asia after Iran said it was ‘closing’ the shipping lane.
Tankers collecting from various ports on the Persian Gulf must undergo Hormuz, a 60-mile-wide a part of the Persian Gulf which has been at the guts of regional tensions for a long time.
Although most chokepoints will be bypassed by utilizing other routes, which regularly add significantly to transit time, some don’t have any alternatives.
Maritime ship experts say shipowners are increasingly wary of using the waterway, with some ships having tightened security and others cancelling routes there.
An Iranian naval frigate sank off the coast of Sri Lanka. Authorities there rescued 32 people, though others died, Sri Lankan officials said.
It was not immediately clear what happened to the ship, which Sri Lankan authorities identified because the Iris Dena, and is armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and may carry a helicopter.
The US military said earlier it had already destroyed 17 Iranian vessels and that its goal was to sink ‘all the navy’.
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