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Iran has threatened action against South Korean shipping group Sinokor beginning November 1 over violations of Tehran’s transit rules for the Strait of Hormuz.
In a statement, the Islamic Republic’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority said vessels linked to Sinokor had accumulated more alleged transit violations over the previous three months than those associated with any other shipping company.
It added that enforcement measures had already been taken against at least seven of the company’s vessels. Cargo owners, beneficiaries and insurers involved in the shipping arrangements were also warned that they could face legal action.
Seven vessels were named in the statement: Cyprus Prosperity, Mombasa B, Senegal Prosperity, Mersin Prosperity, Ghana Prosperity, Cameroon Prosperity and Angola Prosperity.
The threat comes as Sinokor has become one of the most important players in the oil tanker market during the war with Iran, deploying a large fleet to transport crude through the strategic waterway as other shipping companies have faced heightened security risks.
In a report published October 23, Bloomberg found that tankers owned by Sinokor carried 105.6 million barrels of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz in September, equivalent to nearly 40% of the oil crossing the waterway that month.
That exceeded the combined 97.3 million barrels attributed to vessels owned by the next three largest shipping groups, Saudi Arabia’s Bahri, Kuwait Oil Tanker Company and the shipping unit of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.
A separate Bloomberg report published on October 27 highlighted Sinokor’s growing influence over the global tanker market, describing how its WhatsApp messages to shipbrokers announcing charter agreements and freight rates have become closely watched by industry participants.
The messages have played an outsized role in shaping perceptions of tanker prices, the news outlet reported, as freight rates for very large crude carriers have surged more than 1,600% this year amid disruption caused by the war.
The report also examined concerns about transparency in the tanker market and the influence of the messages on the freight-rate benchmark maintained by London’s Baltic Exchange.
The latest Iranian threat adds a legal and regulatory risk to Sinokor’s already substantial exposure to the conflict, as its ships remain central to oil movements through the Gulf.
Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained sharply below normal on October 17, with an AIS-based monitor recording seven vessel crossings in the preceding 24 hours, about 8% of the strait’s prewar daily average. This shows that the strategic waterway is still under the control of the Islamic Republic, which stepped up its anti-shipping attacks in recent weeks.
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