Tanker operator D'Amico sees significant headwinds facing global shipping even if the strait of Hormuz can effectively reopen to commercial traffic given infrastructure damage in the Mideast Gulf and mines possibly lingering in the strait.
"There are almost 19mn b/d between crude and refined products which used to transit through Hormuz, so around 18pc of total oil supply and 25pc of seaborne volume," D'Amico chief executive Carlos Balestra di Mottola said.
"I expect when the war ends, unfortunately, we will not be able to see all the flows we were seeing from this region," di Mottola said.
Reopening the strait of Hormuz would remove the major chokepoint that has starved global markets of typical Mideast Gulf flows of refined oil products and crude oil. But the reality on the ground has shifted in the two weeks since the US and Israel began striking Iranian targets. Expecting a similar level of output from the Mideast Gulf in the near term even with the removal of this chokepoint may be too presumptuous, according to di Mottola.
"I believe, unfortunately, [flows of crude oil and refined products] might not be able to come back to full speed immediately," di Mottola said. "It will crucially depend on how severely damaged all this oil infrastructure is. We are reading headlines every day of refineries being attacked, export terminals being attacked, so we really will only be able to assess and understand the extent of this damage when things calm down."
Iranian mines suspected to be resting on the seabed of the strait remain the biggest wildcard for shippers and insurers alike. A full reopening of the strait would require assurances of total mine removal from the area, which would likely require significant time to complete.
"Before sending our vessels, we want to make sure that there aren't any mines which could be hitting our vessels," di Mottola confirmed. He noted that none of the company's 21 medium range tankers and six long range 1 tankers were stuck within the Mideast Gulf, but that the company did cancel one contract with a charterer because it was not safe to enter the region.
Di Mottola also pointed to ongoing Red Sea loadings as providing some relief to the de facto closure of the strait of Hormuz in the meantime, but only at a fraction of typical flows.
"There is the potential to reroute, through some pipelines [to the Red Sea], part of this production, around 3.54mn b/d, but that leaves still a deficit of around 15mn b/d and lost oil output which cannot be easily replaced," di Mottola said.
