Evergreen: attacked box ship was following UKMTO Hormuz route; IMO: vessels still transiting

Update: in a press briefing, IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said preliminary information showed that at least 15 vessels have moved through the Strait of Hormuz on the day after an attack on its 9,532-TEU container ship Ever Lovely caused IMO to pause a vessel evacuation programme. 

"The recent information that I have from this morning, and again I still need to fully verify, but four vessels were reported to transit using the northern corridor, and 11 vessels transited through the southern corridor," Secretary-General Dominguez said. 

"It is important to also highlight that, in the southern corridor, the United States, together with Oman, have continued to provide some assistance to the vessels. So even though the mechanism from IMO is not [operational] for the time being, these vessels are actually utilising the southern corridor."

A navigational framework announced on 24 June by IMO and Oman aimed to provide safe transit routes to vessels for the purposes of an evacuation. The routes run to the north and south of the traditional Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) that authorities presume still contains mines. The southern route is labelled as Oman-approved and the northern route as Iran-approved. The Secretary-General estimated that around 80 mines are in the off-limits TSS route.

Secretary-General Dominguez said IMO and others are continuing to investigate the attack on the vessel and the reasons behind it.

Evergreen Line has confirmed via email the 25 June attack on Ever Lovely in the Strait of Hormuz.

"Struck by an unidentified object on the starboard side of the bridge superstructure, the Singapore-flagged container vessel owned by Evergreen Marine Asia was transiting the Strait of Hormuz in accordance with the recommended route issued by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO)," the company said.

Following the attack, the Taiwan-based liner company said the vessel had safely exited the Strait of Hormuz and continued its scheduled voyage and that two additional Evergreen Line vessels, Ever Unicorn and Ever Lotus, transited the Strait of Hormuz "safely without any abnormal incidents". 

The departure of the three vessels from the Middle East Gulf leaves no further Evergreen Line vessels trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz, the company said.

Following the attack, IMO and UKMTO made the decision to "temporarily pause" operations in support of a navigational framework announced on 24 June by IMO and Oman that provided safe transit routes to vessels. The routes run to the north and south of the traditional Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) that authorities presume still contains mines. The southern route is labelled as Oman-approved and the northern route as Iran-approved. 

Announcing the suspension of IMO and UKMTO on 24 June, IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said Ever Lovely "did not transit under IMO’s evacuation framework". 

Despite the pause in IMO and UKMTO management, transits through the strait "remained elevated on 25 June, with 54 verified transits recorded," by maritime intelligence firm Kpler. 

Based on Kpler’s tracking statistics, it appears that 32 of the non-sanctioned vessels that transited the Strait of Hormuz did so without taking part in the IMO-Oman operational framework, while 10 participated in the scheme. 

"Of the 54 crossings, 24 followed the Omani Route, 10 followed the IMO Route, 8 followed the Iranian Route, and 9 were classified as Dark/Unknown Route. This points to a wider use of recognised passage patterns, particularly the Omani Route," Kpler’s Maritime Risk & Compliance Manager Dimitris Ampatzidis said in a blog post.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have also threatened several commercial vessels on multiple occasions in recent days, including the threat of potential missile fire.

Vessel tracking and maritime intelligence firm Windward tracked five vessels that it said exhibited "turnaround behaviour" in the strait, with a sixth losing AIS. Three of the vessels may have been linked to a claim on IRGC’s Telegram channel that it had turned back three tankers. Windward said the "southern corridor, previously described as not requiring Iranian approval, is now subject to active IRGC enforcement" but that the Strait of Hormuz remains "operationally open" with 43 transits recorded by the firm on 25 June.

With commercial transits through the strait apparently continuing despite the potential threats, the impact of the attack on the 60-day ceasefire deal agreed between the US and Iran remains unclear at this stage. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US would be paying attention to actual attacks and that threats and tolls would be "a problem" in the eyes of the US government. 

On 18 June, the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding committing all sides in the war to an immediate and permanent halt to military operations on all fronts.