An oil tanker exploded and caught fire after colliding with mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Monday — an account US Central Command has flatly rejected.
The vessel was identified by Iranian state news agency Fars as the El Gaia, sailing under the Panamanian flag, Hiru News reported, citing the Jerusalem Post. The IRGC did not say when the incident occurred.
Two irreconcilable accounts of the same ship
The dispute is not over detail. The two sides describe different weapons, a different sequence of events and a different location.
Iran’s version. Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei said the tanker “struck a naval mine in the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Al Jazeera.
CENTCOM’s version. The US command disputes that account, saying the vessel “was hit by an Iranian missile last month and struck again by a drone this weekend.” Al Jazeera places the ship in waters off the coast of Oman — which is outside the strait itself.
If CENTCOM is correct, the El Gaia was not mined and was not in the Strait of Hormuz when it burned. If the IRGC is correct, mines remain in a waterway that has already been the subject of competing clearance claims.
Why the mine claim carries weight
The question of whether mines are still in the strait has been contested for weeks. Attribution matters commercially as well as militarily: mines are an indiscriminate hazard that affects every hull in the channel, while a targeted missile or drone strike on one vessel is a narrower risk that underwriters price differently.
Neither source gives the tanker’s cargo, its owner, its operator, or the size of its crew.
The Sri Lankan exposure
Sri Lanka imports all of its crude and refined fuel, and the Hormuz conflict has been feeding directly into domestic prices and markets. Brent breached US$100 a barrel earlier this month, the Colombo bourse has repeatedly sold off on oil news — the ASPI slipped below 21,350 on Monday — and the Energy Minister has said a fuel price revision is possible by the end of September.
Talks between Gulf Arab states and Iran that were expected to address the strait were postponed this week, and a vessel was struck in the strait on Saturday.
Not reported
Neither source gives a date for the explosion, the El Gaia’s position when it caught fire, whether the fire has been extinguished, or the fate of the crew. Neither says who owns or operates the vessel, where it was sailing from or to, or what it was carrying.
CENTCOM does not say what it believes caused the fire this weekend beyond attributing it to a drone, and Iran has not responded to the CENTCOM account. No independent verification of either version was available from the sources cited here, and no maritime authority is quoted in either report.
