The late-February attack on the Skylight tanker near Khasab Port is not an isolated incident — it is the opening move in a campaign that could redraw global energy maps and push oil prices toward historic highs.
Location: 5 nautical miles north of Khasab Port, Musandam Governorate, Oman
Vessel: MV Skylight — Palau-flagged, 96 metres
Crew: 20 total — 15 Indian nationals, 5 Iranian nationals
Casualties: 4 injured; all crew evacuated safely
Method: Drone and missile strike
Iran oil exports since attacks began: ~13.7 million barrels — continuing uninterrupted
The Attack
On a Tuesday morning in late February 2026, an Iranian strike shattered the fragile calm that had long made the Strait of Hormuz the world’s most closely watched waterway. The target: the Skylight, a Palau-flagged oil tanker sailing five nautical miles north of Khasab Port in Oman’s Musandam Governorate. Iranian drones and missiles found their mark. Heavy black smoke billowed across the Gulf, and Iranian state media declared the vessel was sinking.
Palau-flagged tanker, 96 metres — struck near Khasab Port, late February 2026
Oman’s Maritime Security Centre confirmed the strike. All 20 crew members evacuated safely. Four sustained injuries of varying severity and received treatment ashore. Iranian state television described the vessel as sinking with heavy black smoke visible from shore.
Iranian media labelled the transit “illegal” and claimed it was coordinated with U.S. naval forces — a framing that signals Tehran’s intent to treat any commercially flagged vessel as a legitimate military target if Washington is implicated. Tracking data placed the 96-metre tanker precisely where Oman’s coast guard said it was. The Revolutionary Guard claimed the strike was a measured response to what it described as American-linked vessels operating in waters Iran increasingly regards as a contested combat zone.
Iran doesn’t need to close the strait entirely to win. It only needs to make insurers, captains, and charterers believe that transiting is not worth the risk.
Why the Strait of Hormuz Is Irreplaceable
At its narrowest, the Strait of Hormuz squeezes to just 21 miles — a sliver of blue water separating Oman from Iran through which an extraordinary share of global energy must pass every single day. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar all rely on the strait as their primary export artery. There is no viable bypass for most of this volume; the existing alternative pipelines have nowhere near the combined throughput needed to absorb a meaningful diversion, and building that capacity would take years and hundreds of billions of dollars.
In normal times, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the world’s traded oil — and a substantial share of its liquefied natural gas — moves through this corridor daily. Since March 1, only 90 tankers have successfully transited; in the same period last year, the number ran into the hundreds. More than 500 vessels are currently anchored or holding position, waiting for clarity that has not come. Iran has issued explicit warnings of further closures, transforming what was once considered a theoretical tail-risk into an operational reality that maritime risk desks are now pricing daily.
Vessels Targeted
Six ships were struck within a 48-hour window, spanning multiple flag states and ownership structures. The breadth of targeting was deliberate: Iran was not making a point about one vessel or one nationality. It was making a point about the waterway itself — and about who controls the right to use it.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed each strike targeted vessels acting “in unison with America” — a formulation broad enough to encompass almost any tanker that has ever called at a U.S.-allied port. The Honduran-flagged Athe Nova was still burning when Iranian drones hit a second vessel. The U.S.-owned Safesea Vishnu was attacked by explosive-laden speedboats, a tactic borrowed directly from the Houthi playbook in the Red Sea and now transplanted into the Gulf’s main commercial artery.
The Strategic Context
These strikes do not exist in a vacuum. They arrived in the immediate aftermath of a series of events that have upended the regional order with staggering speed: U.S.-Israeli air campaigns, the reported assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and drone strikes on Oman’s Duqm port — a facility that had, until recently, sat well outside any plausible conflict zone. Each escalation has invited a reciprocal one, and the intervals between provocations and responses have been shrinking.
A telling anomaly runs through the violence: Iran’s own oil exports have continued largely uninterrupted throughout the crisis. Since attacks began, some 13.7 million barrels of Iranian crude have moved to market. Tehran is not trying to strangle the strait — it is trying to strangle everyone else’s use of it, while keeping its own lanes open. This is coercive economics, not a blockade. The distinction matters enormously for how long Iran can sustain the campaign and what it will ultimately cost the global economy.
Six vessels in 48 hours. That is not a warning shot. That is a campaign.
Human and Economic Toll
The toll is already being counted in multiple currencies. Indian officials have been in urgent contact with maritime authorities over the welfare of the 15 Indian nationals aboard the Skylight — a reminder that seafarers from South Asia form the invisible backbone of global commercial shipping and bear disproportionate risk in every maritime conflict. Four crew members remain under medical care. The families of those aboard have received little beyond initial reassurances.
In the UAE, commercial flights were suspended after fuel storage facilities were struck, creating a cascade that reached aviation hubs well beyond the Gulf. Rerouting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope adds three to four weeks to journey times and dramatically increases operating costs — a surcharge that will eventually appear at petrol stations and on electricity bills from Tokyo to Toronto. Analysts have begun using the phrase “record highs” in discussions of U.S. natural gas prices for the first time since 2022.
Escalation Vectors
President Trump’s decision to authorise strikes on Iranian oil infrastructure — including facilities on Karbala Island — has introduced a new and volatile variable into the equation. Until now, Iranian attacks had largely targeted third-country commercial shipping. Direct strikes on Iranian energy assets change Tehran’s calculus, raising the cost of restraint and lowering the threshold for a dramatic Iranian response: mining the strait, striking Saudi Aramco facilities, or activating proxy forces from Iraq to Yemen simultaneously.
Shipping firms are already adapting under duress. Armed escorts, previously reserved for high-value military charters, are now being requested for commercial tankers. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations has issued repeated advisories urging all masters to apply heightened vigilance throughout the northern Arabian Sea. Lloyd’s insurance war-risk premiums for Gulf passages have spiked to levels not seen since the 1980s Tanker War — and underwriters are quietly reviewing whether some routes remain insurable at any price.
What Comes Next
The Strait of Hormuz has survived crises before — the Tanker War of the 1980s, the near-misses of 2019, the long shadow of U.S.-Iran nuclear brinkmanship. Each time, the incentives on all sides eventually aligned around keeping the oil moving. That logic has not disappeared. But it has never been tested under conditions quite like these: a potentially decapitated Iranian leadership, an emboldened U.S.-Israeli coalition, and a regional order in which the old rules no longer visibly hold.
The 21 miles of the Strait of Hormuz have never felt narrower.
Sources: Oman Maritime Security Centre · UKMTO Advisory Notices · Iranian state media (IRNA / PressTV) · MarineTraffic vessel data · U.S. Energy Information Administration · Indian Ministry of External Affairs · Lloyd’s Market Association Joint War Committee
