Oil and gas tankers are already passing through the Strait of Hormuz — Bloomberg
A large liquefied natural gas carrier and a tanker carrying petroleum products successfully began their passage through the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.
This occurred just a few hours after U.S. President Donald Trump officially announced the signing of a new security agreement with Iran.
According to published reports, the Mraikh, a vessel chartered by QatarEnergy carrying a shipment of liquefied natural gas, as well as the empty petroleum products tanker Ye Chi, entered the waters of the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning.
Both civilian vessels were following a special route that had been pre-approved by Tehran to ensure the safe passage of ships.
Meanwhile, the Ye Chi officially declared its Chinese affiliation while in transit—a practice that has become quite common, as vessels are increasingly emphasizing their ties to countries that maintain friendly relations with Iran.
Currently, the Mraikh lists the Pakistani port of Qasim as its next destination, while the Ye Chi, which is directly operated by a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned corporation Cosco Shipping, has not specified its final destination at all.
According to industry experts, the successful unloading of fuel from the Mraikh will significantly alleviate the difficult energy situation for Pakistan, which is currently facing a gas shortage after supplies from Qatar were cut off.
The South Asian country is already seeking an urgent shipment of LNG through an international tender and may cancel it entirely if the Qatari tanker arrives at the port on time.
Despite these initial positive developments, overall civilian shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains minimal at this time—on Thursday morning, the strait was traversed primarily by small cargo ships.
This was reported by the Bloomberg news agency, citing up-to-date data from international shipping monitoring systems.
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