Two seafarers missing after drone hits Petro Dolphin off Sohar as IRGC widens threat
Iran's Guards say ships on unauthorised routes will be pursued anywhere in the region; a laden VLCC was hit at anchor off the UAE
Two Indian seafarers are missing after a drone struck the Nicaragua-flagged product tanker Petro Dolphin at the Sohar anchorage in Oman on Sunday 11 October. India's ports minister Sarbananda Sonowal said nine of the 11 Indian crew had been rescued, and Oman's coast guard is searching for the other two. UKMTO reclassified the incident as an attack once it had confirmed the drone hit, and said the damage and any pollution were still unknown.
The strike, outside the Strait of Hormuz on Oman's Batinah coast, came two days after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said it was widening its enforcement against what it calls non-compliant ships. "From now on, encounters with offending vessels will not be limited to the Strait of Hormuz, and any vessel that passes through an unauthorized passage anywhere in the region will be pursued and its punishment will be certain," the statement of 9 October said. It added that companies it accuses of working with the United States would be sanctioned and all their ships targeted.
Which other ships were hit?
On the morning of 9 October a vessel at anchor about 13 nautical miles off the coast of the UAE was struck by an unknown projectile and caught fire, which was put out. Security consultancies identified her as Gem No. 2, a laden Panama-flagged VLCC of 302,783 dwt built in 2017 and managed in Taiwan. The same day the Marshall Islands-flagged crude tanker Valthera was hit by a projectile in the strait and caught fire; her 11 Indian crew were reported safe.
The IRGC claimed an attack on the Vietnamese-owned LPG carrier NV Sunshine, which it said was disabled by an engine room fire off Qatar; her AIS showed her at anchor off Ras Laffan. Shots were fired near the VLCC Dhalkut at anchor off Fujairah. On 11 October the IRGC released footage of what it said was a tanker on fire after striking a mine in the southern corridor near Oman, which has not been independently verified. US Central Command says the shipping lane has been cleared of mines.
The International Maritime Organization's list of confirmed incidents since the war began on 28 February passed 100 with the strike on the crude tanker ST1 off Oman on 7 October. UKMTO counts 59 incidents since July, 41 of them involving merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Windward identified a dozen ships struck in the recent wave, 11 of them tankers, all in the southern channel near Oman with AIS switched off.
What has it done to traffic?
Kpler put crude exports at just under 10 million barrels a day as of 7 October, about a third below the roughly 15.5 million barrels a day of September. Kpler counted seven commodity carriers through the strait on 6 October, against an average of more than 20 a day earlier in the month, the lowest level since 23 July. Brent closed the week at about $104.50 a barrel.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 12 October 2026.
