"Deal or finish them off": tanker disabled in Hormuz as Qatar mediates and Brent sits near $115

A tanker was struck by an unknown projectile and disabled while sailing out through the Strait of Hormuz, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency has said. It came as Qatari mediators visited Tehran and President Donald Trump weighed a deal against further military action.

UKMTO said on Monday it had received a verified, time-late report of the incident, which happened on Friday 23 October at 08:39 UTC, according to the shipping news site gCaptain. All crew were reported safe. UKMTO did not name the tanker, say who fired the projectile or give details of the damage.

In a separate warning, UKMTO said it had received multiple third-party reports of a vessel on fire about 63 nautical miles south-east of Al-Faw, Iraq, in the northern Gulf. It classed the report as suspicious activity rather than a confirmed attack. The cause of the fire is unclear.

Threat level stays “severe”

In its latest advisory, issued on 25 October, the Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) kept its threat assessment for the Strait of Hormuz at SEVERE and warned that further deliberate attacks were highly likely, gCaptain reported. The threat across the wider Gulf remains SUBSTANTIAL.

JMIC counted 156 confirmed maritime security incidents in the region since 1 March, a figure published before UKMTO’s latest disclosure. It estimated that about 492 vessels were waiting outside the strait as of 25 October. It also recorded 101 US-facilitated transits between 22 and 24 October, against a historical average of about 138 vessels a day in 2025, though the two figures are measured differently.

The US military gives a more upbeat picture. US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday that more than 3,000 commercial vessels had transited the strait with its support over the past six months, and that it had helped Gulf states export more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil since June, Al Jazeera reported. CENTCOM said more than 95% of ships had passed safely in recent months. These are CENTCOM’s own figures.

Diplomacy under pressure

A Qatari team was in Tehran on Sunday as part of an effort coordinated with the US to reduce tensions, an official briefed on the matter told Reuters, as reported by Iran International.

Speaking to Fox News the same day, Mr Trump said: “Do I make a deal with them or do I finish them off? That’s the only question.” Asked separately whether US strikes could resume that day, he said: “There will not be a strike today.”

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said messages were still passing between Iran and the US through intermediaries.

Two further reports remain unconfirmed. The Hill, citing two unnamed sources, reported that the US military had prepared options for renewed strikes after the 3 November midterm elections. Separately, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan was reported by the Associated Press as saying Tehran had offered, through Islamabad, to reopen the strait if Washington lifted its naval blockade. The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency rejected a similar report by Al Arabiya as “lies and fantasy”.

Oil and the UK

Figures in this section are as reported on Tuesday 27 October.

Brent crude futures were at $115.15 a barrel at 00:00 GMT on Tuesday, down 66 cents, Reuters reported. Brent settled at $115.81 on Monday after briefly topping $117, according to CNBC. It was at $72.48 on 27 February, the day before the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, Al Jazeera reported.

For UK households, the BBC reports that energy prices jumped after the conflict led to the effective closure of the strait, and that higher petrol and diesel prices drove inflation to 3.1% in the year to August.