Two oil tankers were severely damaged by attacks in the Gulf of Oman between Iran and the Arabian peninsula yesterday in a sharp escalation of Middle East tensions that sparked a 4 per cent surge in crude prices.
The ships, one Japanese and one Norwegian-owned, were hit by unknown weapons and abandoned close to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes and a chokepoint for exports out of the oil-rich region.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attacks, the latest in a string of assaults on oil and transport facilities in and around the Gulf in recent weeks as hostility between the US and Iran has heightened fears of conflict.
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