BIMCO’s executives and analysts have weighed in the aftermath of the ceasefire agreement in the Middle East war. More specifically, Chief Safety & Security Officer, Jakob Larsen commented the following:
Will ships trapped in the Persian Gulf seek to leave immediately, or will they likely await further clarification of the ceasefire deal?
Ships trapped in the Persian Gulf will be interested in leaving as soon as it is safe to do so.
The shipping industry is currently awaiting technical details from the US and from Iran on how to transit the Strait of Hormuz safely.
Leaving the Persian Gulf without prior coordination with the US and Iran would entail heightened risk and would not be advisable.
Also, to avoid unnecessary navigational risks, an uncoordinated exit is not advisable.
What are the risks involved when transiting the Strait of Hormuz?
If too many ships attempt to transit at once, due to the confined nature of the Strait of Hormuz, there is a heightened risk of navigational hazards like grounding or collisions.
Iran has announced that they want to be in control of transits in the Strait. However, Iran’s military command structure has been severely impacted by attacks in recent weeks which could lead to misunderstandings between the Iranian authorities approving transits and the Iranian military formations that control the weapons. Such misunderstandings could potentially lead to unintended targeting and attacks on ships approved for transit.
Reportedly, Iran still has significant amounts of weapons to control shipping through the Strait, including antiship missile, drones, fast attack craft, coastal artillery, and mines.
Do you expect navies to commence escorting of merchant ships?
In the short term, navies are not expected to escort merchant ships. There is still too much uncertainty regarding the practical implementation of the ceasefire, and any setback in negotiations could lead to a resumption of hostilities. In that case, warships in the Strait of Hormuz would be quite vulnerable to Iranian attack.
At a later stage, if the ceasefire firms up, escorting might become an option to provide a level of assurance to seafarers on transiting ships.
Meanwhile, Chief Shipping Analyst, Niels Rasmussen said:
Assuming that passage through the Strait is considered safe, the following could be expected:
Ships so far trapped within the Persian Gulf will likely be looking to leave soonest possible.
As far as possible, they will load cargoes prior to leaving but only if loading does not jeopardize the chance of leaving within the two weeks.
Unless the two-week window is quickly lengthened, I doubt there will be a large influx of ships into the Persian Gulf. Partly because many ships have already sailed to other regions and partly because they do not want to risk being trapped after the two-week window closes.
Even if we return to normal after the two weeks, oil exports will be impacted for some time as production needs to be restarted at several fields and as damage to infrastructure needs to be repaired.
Source: BIMCO
