Two oil tankers were set ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday and the United States struck Iran for a 10th consecutive night, an escalation that has driven crude oil to five-week highs and lands at the worst moment for Australian drivers, whose fuel excise relief runs out in under a fortnight.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the two vessels, the Kuwaiti-operated Kaifan and the Malta-flagged Kavomaleas, caught fire after taking what it called an unsafe southern route through the strait. The crews of both abandoned ship and no casualties were reported, according to maritime security reporting by gCaptain. A third tanker was damaged in a separate attack, its crew remaining aboard. "It is obvious that as long as America's evils continue in the region, the Strait of Hormuz will be closed," the Guard said in a statement.
The US Central Command said its overnight strikes hit Iranian military command centres, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defence systems, and were meant to degrade Iran's ability to attack commercial shipping. Iranian media reported explosions around Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island and Isfahan. President Donald Trump said the US would soon hit Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply buried site Israeli intelligence believes now houses Iranian centrifuges, "pretty soon, and very heavily."
The Pentagon has confirmed 18 US service members killed since the conflict escalated, CBS News reported on Tuesday, with almost 100 personnel injured since 7 July. Iran has been striking US bases in Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Diplomacy is running behind the fighting. Qatar, Egypt and Pakistan have put a 10-day ceasefire proposal to Washington and Tehran that would halt strikes and revive a June memorandum reopening the strait. Neither side had accepted it by Tuesday. Iran's foreign ministry said it had received the mediators' proposals but would not discuss them, and its strikes went on. An earlier 60-day truce, signed in June, collapsed within weeks.
About a fifth of the world's seaborne oil passes through the strait. Brent crude rose to around US$90 a barrel and briefly above US$91 this week, its highest since mid-June, according to market reporting by CNBC.
For Australian motorists the timing is punishing. The temporary halving of the fuel excise was already wound back to about 16 cents a litre from 1 July, and it ends outright on 2 August, the same week the Hormuz crisis is lifting global crude and the regular August indexation adds to the pump price. The consumer watchdog, the ACCC, has monitored petrol prices weekly rather than quarterly since the conflict began in March. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has tied Iran's actions in the strait to what Australians pay at the bowser.
Australia's own role is limited and defensive. It sent an E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and support crew to the United Arab Emirates in March and supplied air-to-air missiles to the Emirates, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ruled out putting Australian troops into Iran. About 115,000 Australians live in the Middle East. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which tells Australians not to travel to Iran, has activated its crisis centre while conceding its ability to help anyone still inside the country is extremely limited.
As of Tuesday the strikes were continuing and the strait remained, by Iran's declaration, closed. The mediators' proposal sat unanswered.
