Iran Strikes Three Tankers Near Hormuz; U.S. Revokes Oil Export License

Iran struck at least three commercial vessels in or near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, including a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker and a Saudi crude supertanker, in what the United States called “wholly unacceptable” attacks that prompted Washington to revoke the oil export license it had granted Tehran under the June cease-fire memorandum.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control revoked General License X effective Tuesday, replacing it with a narrow 10-day wind-down provision requiring payments on existing Iranian oil transactions to flow into a blocked, interest-bearing account in the United States. Brent crude settled 3 percent higher at $74.16 a barrel and extended those gains after hours, touching $76.04 — a 5.6 percent advance — as traders repriced Middle East supply risk.

The Attacks

A projectile struck the Qatari LNG carrier Al-Rekayyat as it transited the strait, Al Jazeera and NPR reported. The Saudi-flagged crude supertanker Wedyan sustained damage from an Iranian-fired missile, CNN reported. A third vessel, whose identity had not been confirmed, was reported hit by an unidentified projectile and believed to have suffered structural damage, according to the U.K. military.

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20 percent of global oil traffic. War-risk insurance premiums for transit had already climbed from 0.125 percent of insured vessel value before the February strikes to between 0.2 and 0.4 percent — an added cost of up to a quarter of a million dollars per voyage on very large crude carriers. Tuesday’s attacks are expected to push those rates higher again.

Washington’s Response

The Treasury Department revoked General License X, which had been issued June 17 as part of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between Washington and Tehran. A U.S. official described the tanker strikes as “wholly unacceptable,” the Times of Israel reported.

General License X1, the replacement authorization, permits only the wind-down of existing transactions through July 17 and bars new sales of Iranian oil. Bloomberg reported the revocation was coordinated with the State Department and the National Security Council.

CBS News reported that the United States also launched retaliatory strikes on Iranian targets, though the Pentagon had not issued a formal statement at time of publication.

Trump at NATO

President Trump was attending the 36th NATO Heads of State Summit in Ankara when news of the attacks broke. He told reporters he was “very disappointed” with the response of European allies to the Iran conflict. Speaking alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump praised Turkey as “instrumental” during the war and said Washington would “consider” resuming F-35 talks with Ankara, CNN and Fox News reported.

The timing — tanker attacks coinciding with a major allied gathering — mirrors the pattern that strained the June 17 MoU in its first weeks, when IRGC forces struck U.S. military facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain even after the ceasefire nominally took effect.

The MoU Under Strain

The Islamabad MoU, signed June 17 following a Pakistan-mediated ceasefire, established a 60-day negotiating window covering freedom of navigation in Hormuz, Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, and sanctions relief. Tuesday’s attacks represent the most serious challenge yet to that framework.

Iran has separately refused IAEA inspectors access to the nuclear sites bombed during Operation Epic Fury — Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — citing a parliamentary law and a Supreme National Security Council resolution. Tehran has argued the sites remain structurally unsafe and that access will only be addressed within a final comprehensive agreement. That standoff, detailed in our earlier report on Iran’s refusal of IAEA access, removes a key verification pillar from the ongoing talks.

A parallel dispute over Iran’s attempt to collect transit fees from Chinese-flagged vessels transiting Hormuz — reported earlier today here — had already tested Beijing’s patience before Tuesday’s strikes.

Market Snapshot

• Brent crude: settled $74.16/bbl (+3%); after hours $76.04 (+5.6%)
• WTI: settled $70.44/bbl (+2.8%); after hours $72.25 (+5.4%)
• Hormuz war-risk premium: 0.2%–0.4% of vessel value per transit
• Gold: trading around $4,500/oz on renewed safe-haven demand

Defense contractors have benefited from the sustained conflict environment. RTX trades at $188.54, up 32 percent over the past year, with a $271 billion backlog including a $1.1 billion AIM-9X contract. Lockheed Martin sits at $545.70, up about 8 percent over the past month, anchored by a $194 billion order book and a recent $4.8 billion PAC-3 missile production contract. The stakes at the NATO summit — where Russia simultaneously struck Kyiv with ballistic missiles, as covered here — have underscored why defense spending commitments remain a central alliance dispute.

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What’s next: The Islamabad MoU’s 60-day clock continues to run, but Tuesday’s events have materially strained both its commercial and security provisions. President Trump has been briefed on options up to and including a return to large-scale military operations but has, until now, chosen the diplomatic track. Whether the tanker strikes and the reimposition of oil sanctions change that calculus is the defining question of the coming days.