Oil prices dipped 2% in early trading today as Donald Trump appeared to step back from joining Israel’s attacks on Iran, while the waters in the Middle East remain busy, and dangerous thanks to vastly increased GPS spoofing in the region in the week since war broke out between the two Middle Eastern nations.
UK, French and German foreign ministers will hold talks with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva today as part of efforts to end the Israel-Iran conflict
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It comes after the White House says Donald Trump will decide in the next two weeks whether the US will join Israeli strikes on Iran, a significant de-escalation from earlier hawkish comments made in Washington.
Trump has delayed making a decision as he thinks there’s a “substantial chance” of talks, according to his press secretary .
Traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy arteries, remains robust as the two maps from a week ago and today from MarineTraffic show.
Maritime traffic patterns are shifting however in response to heightened threats in the region. Between June 11 and 18, analytics firm Windward identified more than 35 LPG tankers stationary in Omani waters — an 82% increase over expected levels.
The median duration of port calls for 89 tankers in Saudi Arabia during the week ending June 19 dropped to 19 hours, 37% lower than the prior week. This marks the shortest median duration since monitoring began in August 2021.
“In the Strait of Hormuz, GPS jamming — rather than hijacking vessels or blocking commercial traffic — appears to be the preferred tactic of grey zone aggression by regional actors, as it threatens without directly impeding maritime flow,” Windward noted in a report published yesterday.
Tuesday saw a fiery collision between a Frontline VLCC and a suezmax belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet with GPS spoofing detected in the hours leading up the accident.
