14 November 2026.

Situation

Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains near a standstill, with IMF PortWatch recording 3 transits on November 8 against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 per day. The lead development is a claim by Iran's Revolutionary Guard that a gas carrier struck a sea mine and caught fire in the strait, reported on November 13; outlets carrying the claim include Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, The Jerusalem Post, Modern Ghana, and Mehr News, Tehran state media. The claim originates with the Revolutionary Guard and no maritime authority has confirmed it. The Guard's aerospace force, in a report from houseofsaud.com, warns of an unlimited response following what Iranian state media describe as a strike on Sirik County, which the Guard characterised as an air strike on a telecoms tower. Iranian state media also relay a claim that the Guard downed a US MQ-1 drone near the strait, per AzerNews, a claim originating with Iranian state media and not independently corroborated. Brent last traded at $96.08, up 0.27% in the last session before the close; WTI stood at $88.92. The feed indexed 40 headlines in the past 24 hours. As of 23:30 UTC, 38 AIS-visible vessels were holding position away from berth in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf watch box, a count that leaves out ships within 25km of a working port and is low because the AIS receivers are hearing fewer ships than usual, not because vessels left. On the Hormuz Index, Crisis Pressure, the state composite, sits in the extreme band, flat over 24 hours, with its value set by physical transit deviation alone; the Escalation Forecast sits in the elevated band, flat over 24 hours, with the Brent-WTI forward spread as its top contributor.