Strait of Hormuz Still Under Pressure

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
This is Mira Business FM. It is the Morning Drive. Welcome more than 100 days into the conflict, and concerns are growing over maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz. One of the world's busiest shipping routes carries roughly a fifth of the world's petroleum consumption daily. Here with us to discuss the risks facing commercial shipping, stranded sailors, and what the latest tensions mean for the Gulf is Christopher Long, head of Intelligence and Compliance at Neptune P2P Group. Christopher, good to have you on the program.

**Christopher Long** (0:35)
Good morning.

**Tim Elliott** (0:37)
We've just crossed the 100-day threshold of the conflict, Christopher. How would you describe the situation, the current situation for commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz right now?

**Christopher Long** (0:50)
100 days in, I'm almost 60 days over what I thought was going to be the length of this conflict. I think everyone's acknowledged now that things are almost at a stalemate. There is shipping passing through the straits, but very limited number, as you know. Still a lot of ships waiting in the Persian Gulf to come out. Still a lot of ships waiting to go in.
The present situation is that the Iranians have created a corridor of their own for ships to transit, which they can negotiate with Iran to travel through. But then there's also a semi-unofficial route, which is taking ships through the Mali waters. I've actually seen, I think, I believe, seen more and more ships taking that route in the last week or so, despite the threats that are present in that.

**Tim Elliott** (1:42)
From an intelligence perspective, how severely has the risk profile for a standard commercial vessel transiting the Strait altered over the last few weeks? You say that there has been more traffic, as it were, but how has that risk profile adjusted?

**Christopher Long** (2:04)
You know, you've got one or two ships go through, that encourages other people to take the risk, and it is a risk. A lot of ships going through, as you know, without their identification system on, that doesn't mean to say they can't be seen by Iran particularly. Also, you've got the US naval side of the effect, if you like, of them trying to stop Iranian-bound traffic in-bound and outbound. So there's threats to all sides of the conflict.
Ships are taking the risk, which puts crew in danger, and also those that would need to come to anyone's rescue. I think that's the other side of the coin that we can't look at.

**Tim Elliott** (2:54)
Let me ask you a little bit about the crews. I'm interested in talking about some of the sailors that are stranded, the crews that are stranded. How are crews trained or being trained to respond to a situation like this?

**Christopher Long** (3:09)
In many cases, they're not.
The master will have some direction from the company's security officer of what methods, if you like, what hard procedures, what procedures his crew should take. We're now trying to transit the Strait. I mean, in general, those would be to get as many people off the deck as possible into a safe place within, or safe-ish place within the ship. But there's very little that a commercial ship can do, can to prepare itself for an attack by a drone or missile that's coming up.

**Tim Elliott** (3:46)
Can we look at how the kind of the threat matrix has evolved? I mean, in the past, maritime security in this region was focused on traditional piracy, or conventional naval posturing. Today, tactics are much more covert. They're technologically far more advanced. How are private security firms, Christopher, and shipping fleets adjusting to non-traditional, if you like, more faster moving risks?

**Christopher Long** (4:18)
Well, one point to make is that ships going through the Strait of Hormuz are very unlikely to have a guard service on. If they are, I mean, the way to counter traditional piracy was to carry armguards. Now, armguards aren't going to be allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz. If they do, then their weapons would have to be locked up. And certainly from our perspective, if it was a team from Neptune, then those guards would be directed not to respond to any state nation action, i.e. Iranian boarding or an approach by Iran.
What we have provided recently is a team of unarmed security advisors to try to provide information to the ship's master during a transit with SSOH, which allows the master to understand the issues that he faced as he got trapped and to provide reassurance to the crew.

**Tim Elliott** (5:21)
Can we turn back to the human element? Ships obviously don't move themselves. When a vessel is rerouted or delayed or worse detained or seized, the crew bears the immediate brunt of that crisis. So, there are thousands of seafarers, by most estimates, stranded in and around the Gulf region. What's the reality on the water for those crews today?