Tanker Owners Turn Off Transponders Amid Rising Tensions

Tankers carrying oil through the Strait of Hormuz are adopting a strategy reminiscent of the early days of the Iran war, turning off their transponders to avoid detection.

This tactic involves temporarily shutting down vessel-tracking systems to mask locations and evade attacks by Iran. Shipowners are willing to take this risk due to the lucrative nature of transporting oil through these chokepoints.

A recent example is the supertanker Romania Prosperity, which vanished in waters off Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman in late July before reappearing 10 days later with observers unable to determine if it carried the same cargo or transferred it to another vessel.

According to ship-tracking data, vessels are spending an increasingly longer time without transmitting their locations. The trend has been observed since the US reinstated its maritime blockade of Iran on July 14, with 62% of oil and product tankers crossing Hormuz in a 'dark' state between that date and early August.