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A group of vessels attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz late on Friday, after the US and Iran announced that it has been reopened, but were forced to stop or turn back, demonstrating the extent of confusion there.
About 20 ships tried to sail towards the strait, Reuters reported, quoting data from MarineTraffic, which was the largest group that has attempted to make the crossing since Iran effectively shut the channel.
Separate data from Hormuz Strait Monitor, a website tracking vessel movements, showed that, as of Saturday morning, eight ships were in transit, the same number as that to have passed in the previous 24 hours.
ICIS, a London-based industry intelligence firm, said that four Qatari liquefied natural gas tankers were heading east towards the strait early on Saturday, although they have yet to clear the waterway, market analyst Alex Froley said. A further nine laden cargoes are "trapped” west of the strait, he added.
Bloomberg, meanwhile, reported on Saturday that five Indian and Greek oil tankers tried to cross the strait, but were forced to turn back and idle.
"There continue to be significant gaps between the US and Iranian negotiating positions, and the status of the negotiations remains unclear,” analysts at the Institute for the Study of War wrote.
The US and Iran announced on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz has reopened, although Iranian state media later said that would be void if Washington continued its blockade of the waterway.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said earlier that “in line with the ceasefire in Lebanon”, the strait was now “completely open” for the remaining period of the truce. He added that passage for ships would follow the co-ordinated route “announced by the Ports and Maritime Organisation of Iran”.
But an Iranian source, quoted by Tasnim news agency, said transit through the strait would be considered "void” if the US naval blockade continued. The source laid out three conditions for vessels seeking to pass – ships must be strictly commercial, military transit remains prohibited and neither the vessel nor its cargo can be linked to countries deemed as hostile to Iran.
Those conditions also exposed internal friction over how the policy is being communicated. Tasnim criticised Mr Araghchi for his social media post, saying it created ambiguity over Iran's rules for transit.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that at least five tankers linked to Iran and were heading from the Gulf of Oman to Malaysia were forced to alter course after the US Navy warned that it could intercept ships transporting Iranian oil in international waters.
