The US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, now entering its third day, has triggered the most severe maritime disruption since the 2023-2025 Red Sea crisis — but on a far greater scale. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed to commercial traffic, three tankers have been struck by missiles, and the world's largest P&I clubs are pulling war risk coverage from the entire Persian Gulf. Brent crude surged past $82 intraday on Monday before settling at $77.74, up 6.7%. For shipowners, fleet managers, and underwriters, this is a live crisis with cascading implications across every major trade lane.
Strait of Hormuz: Effective Closure and Tanker Strikes
The IRGC began broadcasting VHF warnings to all vessels on February 28, stating that no ship is permitted to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Within the first 36 hours, at least three tankers were struck by missiles or drones in what maritime security officials describe as indiscriminate attacks.
The Palau-flagged tanker Skylight was hit approximately five nautical miles north of Khasab Port, Oman. All 20 crew — 15 Indian nationals and 5 Iranian nationals — were evacuated, though at least four sustained injuries. The crude carrier MKD Vyom took a projectile strike above the waterline, sparking an engine room fire that was later brought under control. The Gibraltar-flagged Hercules Star confirmed a strike off the UAE coast.
Tanker traffic through the strait has collapsed. Windward maritime intelligence reports that approximately 150 tankers, including crude oil and LNG carriers, have dropped anchor in open Gulf waters rather than attempt the transit. An additional 27 laden vessels carrying an estimated 12 million barrels are holding in the Arabian Sea without confirmed discharge destinations. The Port of Bandar Abbas is experiencing multiple active fires, including one aboard a berthed vessel, with 17 Iranian military vessels and five commercial ships remaining at the port.
Electronic warfare has compounded the physical threat. Windward reports that GPS jamming has affected more than 1,100 ships in the Middle East Gulf over the past 24 hours, with vessels erroneously showing positions at airports, a nuclear power plant, and on land across Iran, Oman, and the UAE. GNSS interference across the Gulf of Oman approaches has produced positional offsets, AIS anomalies, and intermittent signal disruptions — a direct hazard to navigation in already confined waters.
Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb: Houthi Resumption Threat
The Houthi movement, which halted its campaign against commercial shipping after the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire, has signaled a return to hostilities. Anonymous Houthi officials told multiple news outlets that the group will soon resume missile and drone attacks on US and Israeli-flagged shipping in the Red Sea. A Yemeni government source told Arab News that Iran instructed the Houthis to begin Red Sea operations on February 28.
Maersk announced on March 1 that it has paused all vessel transits through the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, reversing a tentative return to Suez Canal routings that carriers had begun earlier in 2026. Industry analysts say any phased return of container shipping to the Red Sea is now shelved indefinitely. The UKMTO issued an advisory on March 1 noting that the security situation across the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Arabian Sea is expected to remain highly volatile over the next 24 to 48 hours.
The combined closure of the Strait of Hormuz and renewed Houthi threat in the Bab el-Mandeb creates an extraordinary scenario: two of the world's three most critical maritime chokepoints are simultaneously denied to commercial traffic.
Insurance Market in Crisis: P&I Clubs Pull Gulf Coverage
The world's largest maritime insurance mutuals have announced they will withdraw war risk coverage for ships entering the Persian Gulf, effective midnight London time on March 5. This is the most significant insurance market disruption since the Iran-Iraq War tanker war of the 1980s.
Marsh, the world's largest insurance broker, estimates hull and machinery rate increases of 25 to 50 percent for Hormuz transits. Before the strikes, war risk premiums stood at approximately 0.25 percent of a vessel's insured H&M value; brokers now indicate premiums could reach 0.5 percent or higher once coverage is rewritten. For a VLCC insured at $100 million, that translates to a single-transit war risk premium of $500,000 or more.
Major container lines have already imposed emergency surcharges. CMA CGM introduced an Emergency Conflict Surcharge of $2,000 per TEU and $4,000 per reefer for all Gulf and Red Sea port cargo. Hapag-Lloyd is levying $1,500 per TEU and $3,500 for reefer and special equipment. Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, and CMA CGM have all suspended Strait of Hormuz transits and issued fresh routing guidance.
Oil Markets: Brent Spikes on Supply Disruption Fears
Brent crude hit a 52-week high on Monday, surging as much as 13% to $82.37 before settling up 6.7% at $77.74. WTI followed a similar trajectory. The primary driver is straightforward: approximately 20 million barrels per day of crude oil — roughly 20% of global consumption — normally transits the Strait of Hormuz. That flow has effectively stopped.
NPR reports that U.S. gasoline prices are expected to rise 10 to 30 cents per gallon on average, with some stations seeing increases of up to 85 cents. Unless the conflict resolves quickly, analysts at CNBC warn that elevated crude prices and freight rates could persist through the remainder of 2026, accompanied by port congestion as vessels reroute around the Cape of Good Hope.
Shadow Fleet Enforcement Intensifies
In parallel with the Gulf crisis, European and allied navies are escalating enforcement against Russia's shadow fleet. On February 28, the Belgian navy intercepted the Guinea-flagged tanker Ethera in the North Sea during Operation Blue Intruder, assisted by two French NH-90 helicopters. Onboard inspection confirmed the vessel was operating under a false flag with suspected falsified documents. The Russian captain is under questioning, and a federal investigation into Navigation Code violations is underway.
The Ethera is linked to Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, whose family reportedly controls a fleet of nearly 40 tankers connected to both Russian and Iranian sanctions evasion, according to TankerTrackers. Belgium is now the second European nation to physically seize a shadow fleet tanker, following France's seizure of the Grinch in January.
The enforcement net is widening. India's Coast Guard conducted its first-ever shadow fleet seizure on February 6, detaining three tankers — the Al Jafzia, Asphalt Star, and Stellar Ruby — carrying Iranian oil. Sweden and Germany have imposed new inspection regimes on Baltic-transiting tankers, and 14 European nations signed an agreement in early February to actively intercept flagless or aging shadow fleet vessels. The US has seized at least eight tankers tied to sanctioned oil under its Venezuelan naval quarantine, with the most recent seizure on February 9 in the Indian Ocean.
Black Sea: Port Strikes Threaten Grain Exports
Russia has intensified strikes on Ukrainian ports in the Odesa region, including the Pivdennyi terminal — Ukraine's largest port and a primary grain export hub. While Ukraine's maritime export corridor continues to function under Ukrainian naval control, the renewed bombardment threatens to slow shipment volumes at a moment when global commodity markets are already under severe stress from the Gulf disruption.
Ukraine had restored 92% of its grain exports through Black Sea maritime routes in 2024, recovering from the collapse of the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023. Any sustained reduction in Black Sea grain throughput would compound the inflationary pressure already building from the Hormuz closure.
South China Sea and Taiwan Strait: Steady Escalation
Chinese military activity around Taiwan continues its upward trend, with PLA aircraft sorties reaching 5,709 in 2025, up from 380 in 2020. The December 2025 Justice Mission exercises rehearsed a full maritime blockade of Taiwan using PLA Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force assets. AEI's China-Taiwan tracker reports continued incursions into Taiwan's ADIZ in early March.
Meanwhile, China is accelerating land reclamation at Antelope Reef in the South China Sea, with an estimated 15 square kilometers of new land under construction since December 2025. The US responded on February 16 by announcing expanded missile and unmanned system deployments to the Philippines. While the Taiwan Strait remains open to commercial shipping, the long-term trajectory points toward increasing operational risk for vessels transiting the strait.
Outlook
The maritime industry faces its most challenging operating environment in decades. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz — responsible for one-fifth of global oil trade — is a scenario that risk managers have modeled but never experienced at this scale. With P&I clubs pulling war risk coverage by March 5, shipowners loading cargo within the Gulf face an immediate decision: pay sharply higher premiums through specialist underwriters, or suspend operations entirely.
The coming 48 to 72 hours are critical. If Iran continues to enforce its VHF denial of the strait and Houthi forces resume Red Sea operations, the global shipping industry will be operating with two major chokepoints simultaneously denied. Fleet managers should monitor UKMTO advisories continuously, confirm war risk coverage status with their brokers before March 5, and prepare contingency routing plans. The JWC Listed Area for the Persian Gulf is already in effect; an expansion to include wider Arabian Sea approaches is possible if hostilities spread.
Sources: Windward Maritime AI, CNBC, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, The National, NPR, gCaptain, Euronews, FreightWaves, Skuld, InsuranceJournal, MarineInsight, Reuters, UKMTO.
