The head of the International Maritime Organization has said that naval escorts through the Strait of Hormuz will not “100 percent guarantee” the safety of ships attempting to transit the waterway, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Military assistance was “not a long-term or sustainable solution” to opening up the strait, Arsenio Dominguez told FT.
The critical Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flow, remains largely closed off, raising energy prices and fears of inflation.
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The closure is also forcing a rapid and costly supply chain rethink to maintain the flow of essential imports, with logistics companies racing to overcome the headaches of changing vessel destinations, moving goods overland, and keeping perishable items from spoiling.
“We are collateral damage of a conflict when the root causes have nothing to do with shipping,” Dominguez told the paper, adding that the IMO had serious concerns about ships stuck in the Gulf running out of food and supplies for their crews.
The IMO Council will meet for an Extraordinary Session on Wednesday and Thursday at its London headquarters to address the impacts on shipping and seafarers as a result of the ongoing mid-east conflict.
Dominguez called for ship managers “not to sail and not to put seafarers at risk and not to put the vessels at risk,” the report said.
U.S. President Donald Trump accused some Western allies of ingratitude after several countries rebuffed his demand to send warships to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
(Reporting by Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; editing by Tom Hogue)
Photograph: An oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Photo credit: Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images
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