IRGC fires on Hormuz ships as Vance says US, Iran 'very close' to deal

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps opened fire on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday morning, according to regional reporting aggregated by The Media Line, just hours after Vice President JD Vance told reporters the United States and Iran are “very close” to a memorandum of understanding that would extend the current 60-day ceasefire. The simultaneous kinetic and diplomatic signals — incoming fire in the world’s most important oil chokepoint while the White House publicly describes the negotiation as nearly closed — marked day 91 of the cycle that began with the March US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Vance’s remarks, carried on the Middle East Eye live blog at 03:43 GMT Friday, are the most explicit confirmation from a senior US official that the proposed truce extension is in advanced shape. The MoU under discussion would extend the existing 60-day pause in direct US-Iran kinetic action that has held, with interruptions, since late March. Neither Tehran nor the White House has formally signed the extension; both sides are still messaging through Omani and Qatari intermediaries, Al Jazeera reported in its day-91 live coverage. President Donald Trump has not personally commented on the proposed extension.

The Hormuz incident is the second in 48 hours involving IRGC fire near commercial traffic. On Thursday, IRGC fast-attack craft fired warning shots near vessels transiting the strait — an episode America Strikes covered here — that Iranian officials characterised as enforcement of maritime claims rather than a breach of the ceasefire. Initial details on Friday’s incident are thin: the number of vessels involved, their flags, and whether the IRGC rounds struck hulls or were intended as warning fire have not been confirmed by US Naval Forces Central Command or by the affected operators. Lloyd’s List Intelligence and Ambrey have not yet posted assessments.

The pattern — pressure inside the strait running alongside, rather than against, the negotiation — is now established enough that markets and Gulf shipping desks are pricing it as a feature of the diplomatic endgame, not a rupture of it. That framing is also what the White House appears to be working with: Vance did not address the Hormuz fire directly in the remarks captured in the MEE feed.

Running parallel to the diplomatic track, the State Department on Friday announced a new round of sanctions on entities and individuals it accused of transporting Iranian crude in violation of US restrictions. The designations follow Thursday’s Treasury OFAC action against the Persian Gulf and Strait Authority, the IRGC-linked body Washington blames for harassment of commercial shipping. The cadence — fresh sanctions every 24 to 48 hours while the MoU language is finalised — is the maximum-pressure track that has run continuously through the negotiation and is not expected to pause under the proposed extension.

A separate strand of Friday’s news was the information war. US Central Command publicly denied an Iranian state-media report that an Iranian air-defense unit had shot down a US aircraft. CENTCOM said no US aircraft had been lost and that the Iranian claim was false. The episode was the third in two weeks in which Iranian outlets have circulated unconfirmed claims of US losses that Washington has rejected on the record.

Energy markets are watching the strait, not the press releases. US energy executives this week warned that Brent could approach $150 a barrel if Hormuz disruptions resume at scale, citing thin global spare capacity and the structural inability of pipeline workarounds to absorb more than a fraction of strait throughput. Brent has so far stayed range-bound in the mid-$70s through the cycle, supported in part by record US crude exports and coordinated SPR releases that have absorbed the geopolitical premium. A confirmed tanker hit — not warning fire — is the scenario traders are positioned for, and the one that would price the executives’ warning into the curve within a single session.

What to watch over the next 72 hours is whether Tehran formally responds to the truce-extension framing or lets Vance’s “very close” characterisation stand uncontradicted. Iranian officials have so far neither confirmed nor denied the MoU language; the Foreign Ministry’s last on-record comment, earlier in the week, was that reports of a draft MoU were a “White House fabrication” — a position that, if maintained, would put Friday’s Vance remarks and the Friday Hormuz fire on the same side of the ledger rather than opposite sides.

Day 91 of the cycle closes with the truce extension unsigned. Each 24 hours that passes without a formal text preserves the optionality both governments appear to want: Washington keeps the sanctions track and CENTCOM posture live; Tehran keeps the IRGC inside the strait and the negotiating posture deniable. The contradiction is the policy.