Oman's maritime authorities rescued 25 crew members from a burning crude oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, as attacks on commercial shipping in the waterway continue at a pace not seen earlier in the Iran war.

The Omani Maritime Security Centre said it evacuated the people aboard the RITI merchant ship. Oman said the vessel was flying the Panamanian flag, and the tracking website MarineTraffic identified it as a crude oil tanker. The rescue came as Iran said four oil tankers had been halted while attempting to use what it called "unauthorised routes" to cross the strait.

What Iran says happened

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said all four vessels were carrying oil and that the ships had been halted following "incidents" or after hitting mines. It said two tankers, one in the eastern part of the strait and one in the western part, "encountered incidents and were brought to a halt in the waters south of the strait" after trying to use an unauthorised route.

Hours later, the IRGC said two more tankers, each carrying more than two million barrels of oil, "exploded and caught fire" as a result of hitting mines while attempting to pass through an "unauthorised route". It is unclear whether either vessel is the RITI, whose crew Oman evacuated. Iran's navy also said it struck and destroyed an unmanned enemy craft east of the strait on Friday. The US military denies the naval mine claims; on Friday, US Central Command chief Brad Cooper said the strait's "internationally recognised primary transit routes" had been successfully cleared of Iranian sea mines.

The October escalation

The rescue is part of a broader pattern. CNBC reports that more commercial ships, mostly oil tankers, have come under attack in October than at any other point in the war. As of October 27, at least 30 vessels had been hit this month, leaving at least 16 seafarers injured, according to data from the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency. Ship attacks doubled in October compared with 15 confirmed incidents in September. Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is operating at about 70 percent below pre-war levels, the UK's Maritime Trade Operations agency said on Friday.

"It's a difficult situation. Ships are attacked really on a daily basis," Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer at the shipping association BIMCO, told CNBC. That description matches the record: a rescue on Friday, two more tankers on fire, and a series of incidents through the month.

Why oil is still moving

The striking part of the story is that crude keeps flowing. When the US and Israel went to war with Iran, Tehran responded with attacks on commercial ships intended to cut off one of the world's main sources of crude. The campaign was initially effective: exports plunged nearly 90% to 1.8 million barrels a day in March from 16 million barrels a day in February, according to Kpler data cited by CNBC.

Flows have rebounded over the past eight months as the US military has provided protection to tankers transiting Hormuz, and Tehran has responded by escalating attacks in recent weeks. Shippers have adapted to wartime conditions in the Gulf, but at a high cost: insurance, routing and crew risk have all changed.

The price signal

Crude prices have risen more than 13% this month as security conditions deteriorated, and the international Brent contract traded above $117 a barrel, according to CNBC. The market is pricing risk rather than shortage at this point: the barrels are still moving, but the cost of moving them has gone up.

That distinction matters for what happens next. If attacks keep doubling month over month, the adaptation that has kept exports flowing becomes harder to sustain, and the price moves from a risk premium to a supply problem. If the attacks level off, the current pattern could hold for months.

What the attacks cost to move

The cost is now in the freight bill. Tanker rates have exploded: hiring a supertanker from the Gulf of Oman to Asia cost $249,000 a day in early September and more than $900,000 a day by the first week of October, according to Kpler analyst Matt Melton, as quoted by CNBC. That translates to about $21 a barrel in transport costs, against $6.50 in September, or roughly 20% to 30% of the delivered cost of crude for Asian importers. About 20% of the world's supertanker fleet is tied up shuttling oil out of the Gulf, and flows through Hormuz still rose more than 70% since July. The tankers depend on US military air cover for security, Larsen said.

What is not known

It is not known whether the tanker Oman evacuated is the same vessel Iran says exploded, or whether the 25 rescued crew are all accounted for. Neither report says how many people were aboard the RITI, what caused the fire, or whether the vessel was carrying crude at the time of the rescue. Iran's account of "unauthorised routes" is its own framing and has not been independently verified.

The nationalities of the crew have not been published in either account, and neither report names the ship's operator. Oman's statement, as reported, describes the evacuation but not the condition of the rescued seafarers or where they were taken.

What to watch

The next signals are the IMO's monthly incident data, the direction of Brent, and whether insurers adjust premiums for Hormuz transits. A formal investigation into the RITI fire would also clarify what happened, but no authority has announced one.

For readers following the energy thread, our coverage of the UK energy price cap explains how wholesale crude moves reach household bills, and the UK business survey on energy costs covers how firms absorb those costs. The Israeli election deadlock is not a shipping or tanker story; it is included only as the political context of the war behind the Hormuz attacks.

The confirmed facts are the rescue of 25 crew, the Panamanian flag, the IRGC statements about four halted tankers and two more that exploded after hitting mines, the US denial, the October attack data and the price move. Everything else, including who was firing at what, remains contested.