Two vessels belonging to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) were attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday evening, the state-owned group said, and the United Arab Emirates has blamed Iran.
ADNOC said no injuries were reported and that the situation had been brought under control, in a statement carried by the UAE state news agency WAM. The company stressed the importance of protecting seafarers and safeguarding freedom of navigation and maritime security.
In its initial account, ADNOC gave no details of who was responsible, and no group claimed the attack, Ada Derana reported.
Abu Dhabi points to Tehran
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs went further in a statement issued in the early hours of Friday, saying it “strongly condemned and denounced the hostile Iranian attack that targeted two vessels affiliated with ADNOC as they transited the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Al Jazeera.
The ministry said Iranian attempts to use the strait as a tool of economic coercion amount to “piracy” and constitute a “direct threat to the stability of the region, its peoples, and the global energy supply.”
Iran did not immediately comment on the attack or on the UAE’s accusation.
Second attack in under a week
The incident follows a similar attack reported by the UAE on an ADNOC tanker on Saturday, August 8.
Iran continues to enforce an effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and wants to charge vessels for passage, a plan Washington opposes; the United States has imposed its own blockade on Iranian shipping. Tehran is in talks with Oman over future arrangements for managing the waterway. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has previously threatened action against vessels transiting the strait that are linked to its adversaries or that fail to comply with Iranian directives.
Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil normally passes through the strait, and the closure has driven up freight and energy costs for importing economies including Sri Lanka. Tehran said this week the strait would remain closed until Washington accepts its conditions.
