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It could. But I doubt it. I think the issue is more the lack of available capacity to transport the grain rather than the cost of marine diesel… I would have to look into it more.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 22h

I am not sure this is really due to Iran / USA… This is a Russian export problem with oversupply caused by inability to ship the grain if I am reading this right. So farmers in the area are getting paid nothing because the market is saturated sue to lack of export capacity. Unless I am wrong?

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 03/10/2026

Another attack overnight on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. This is the 6th attack this week, and still getting almost no coverage!! The human price for transiting the Strait seems to be being priced into business costs.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Now confirmed by the UKMTO as a separate incident, another tanker has been struck in the Strait of Hormuz. This is the 5th attack in 4 days on shipping in the Strait and a clear escalation of violence.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

"I wish I knew how to grift you..."

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The key point is this; Ships can still get through and goods can still move. But that is no longer evidence of open navigation. It is evidence that open navigation has been replaced by conditional and fundamentally unstable access.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

What to watch for: • another confirmed attack on a merchant ship in either Hormuz or Bab al-Mandab • any strike involving a naval escort • further attacks on Saudi energy or civilian infrastructure • whether the carrier deployment produces deterrence or prompts a response

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The next 48–72 hours of #TheHormuzCrisis matter more than ever. We are now watching for the events that determine whether this hardens into a durable, conditional access regime, or breaks into the wider regional war everyone has spent months trying to avoid.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

None of those outcomes is inevitable. That is important. The base case remains managed, militarised access with enough trade moving to prevent immediate collapse. However, enough risk remains to prevent genuine recovery. This is not a stable peace. It is a brittle operating condition.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The danger is that this system is inherently unstable. It can keep ships moving until an escort is successfully attacked, a large tanker is lost, casualties trigger a wider response, Saudi energy infrastructure is seriously damaged, or one side decides the other has crossed a line it cannot ignore.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

This is why I think we are approaching the tipping point. The improvised measures are looking less like emergency measures and more like the system that will replace free navigation. That is escorts, selective passage, opaque routing, alternative infrastructure and accepted commercial losses.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

That does not mean the US is preparing to make shipping safe again. It means it is rebuilding options. Deterrence, air defence, force protection, coercive pressure and the ability to respond if the crisis crosses another threshold. Those are not the same as restoring normal trade.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The USA is responding to this wider picture, not simply one tanker incident. Trump has rejected Iran’s proposal as inadequate and has left open renewed bombing after the election. The Theodore Roosevelt carrier group and Makin Island amphibious group are moving toward the region.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Even a disputed event tells us something about the direction of travel. Saudi-Houthi conflict is intensifying just as Saudi export infrastructure and Red Sea access have become central to keeping oil moving around Hormuz. Yemen’s civil war and merchant shipping are no longer separate issues.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Then there is the broader escalation. The Saudi-led coalition says a Houthi drone damaged a power-distribution station in Medina supplying the Prophet’s Mosque. The Houthis deny responsibility. The wider grid was not disrupted.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Also, four merchant vessels have reportedly been attacked in Hormuz across a matter of days. The public attribution and full details remain incomplete, but the pattern is what matters. A route cannot be treated as commercially secure when repeated attacks are part of the operating picture.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The Houthis’ gains around Mokha and the Red Sea islands matter for exactly this reason. They do not give the Houthis magical control of every ship in Bab al-Mandab. But they improve surveillance, shorten engagement distances and make the alternative route easier to threaten.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Saudi Arabia’ restoring Yanbu is the clearest example of the problem. It has created an alternative to Hormuz, but that alternative must pass through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. This means facing a Houthi force with greater access to the coastline and islands around the choke point.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The weakness is obvious when you look at refined products. Crude can be diverted, stored, blended and moved through alternative infrastructure. Diesel and other products are less forgiving. That is why the damage is now reaching fuel prices, freight costs and eventually the wider cost of living.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

All of this has led some people to conclude that the crisis is easing. It is not. It means the shipping system has found ways to keep some volume moving despite the threat. Adaptation is not the same thing as security. It is often evidence that normality has already been lost.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Hormuz has already shown us the commercial version of this. See The Guardian headline and by-line tell different stories. Largely return to pre-war levels, but needing to be clarified that is by "alternative ways". That alternative is the workaround some are finding to normalise the situation.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

This is what I mean by politically managed access. The sea is not formally closed. Cargo is still moving. But access is increasingly dependent on political and military arrangements which sit outside the ordinary commercial system. The right to transit is becoming a privilege that must be enabled.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

It also produces different "winners and losers". A shipowner with the right connections, cargo, insurer, political relationship or priority may receive protection. Another vessel reroutes, pays more, switches off AIS, transfers cargo at sea or decides the voyage is not commercially viable.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

It is, by definition, selective access. A frigate cannot escort every ship, all the time, in two threatened choke points. Someone has to decide which vessels move, when they move, which route they use and what degree of risk is acceptable. That is a fundamentally different commercial system.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The success is the warning. Those ships did not make the passage because Bab al-Mandab has become safe again. They made it because they were temporarily placed beneath the protection of a French warship. That is not freedom of navigation restored. It is access administered by naval power.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

It is significant not because it has failed. It appears to have worked. France says that no ship escorted by its forces has been lost or struck. That is exactly what an escort is meant to do. Create enough local air defence, surveillance and deterrence for a ship or group of ships to get through.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

What we are seeing now is not a return to that system. It is a replacement for it. France has confirmed that one of its warships escorted around ten merchant vessels through Bab al-Mandab in the past week, under the EU’s ASPIDES mission. That is a significant development.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

There were risks, obviously. Piracy. War-risk premiums. Regional tensions. The occasional crisis. But the underlying presumption was that sea trade was open. A ship could be chartered, insured and sailed through an international strait because the system itself was expected to protect that right.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

The system we had before was built on an assumption that now looks archaic. Merchant vessels could trade through Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea without their passage being determined by an armed escort, their commercial links, their flag, or whether it was politically acceptable.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

I do not mean a diplomatic resolution or that the crisis is ending. I mean the region is settling into the answer to the question it has been asking for months. Can trade continue while the strategic sea routes are actively contested? The answer appears to be, yes, but only conditionally.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 02/10/2026

I held off posting a #TheHormuzCrisis update yesterday because there was a lot happening. I have had time to process and analyse as much as I could, and I think we have reached the tipping point. It is clear now that we are moving toward a resolution, and that is not reassuring given the evidence.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 01/10/2026

There is an awful lot happening in #TheHormuzCrisis at the moment. I am currently reading, processing and trying to understand what we are seeing. I should have a full run down tomorrow, but by then it could all be out of date with how fast events are moving.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Yeah that is why I am doing this kind of thing. Anything to wean them onto more healthy meals - and just making eating dinner more of a family event. Got an actual conversation going tonight too about ancient Egypt which is the topic at school 🤣

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Tonight’s dinner - my increasingly desperate attempts to get the kids to try other foods. Borrowed my Mum’s hot-plate and cooked up prawns, duck, buffalo burgers and lots of green veggies. Went down ok - some things tried at least.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

It is too early to speculate on this. But I will keep watch in case more reports come in.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Well that makes it all a bit clearer. Iran finally admit they are targeting merchant sailors in the Strait of Hormuz to prove the USA has no control of it. So seafarers are expendable pawns to them? I keep saying they are a brutal regime. But there needs to be an end other than war.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

True - if they are heading for Europe. Or divert around the Cape of Africa. But this is why the supply to the Far East is being prioritised if coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. Ease of access.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

I was just getting the information as it was a little confused - but there are 3 independent strikes reported over the last 24 hours - a tanker, a crude oil tanker and an LNG carrier all struck.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Three separate incidents all being reported by UKMTO - which all occurred sometime int he last 24 hours. A tanker, a crude oil tanker and an LNG tanker all reported hit in the Strait of Hormuz! This is the greatest number of attacks in 24 hours in months and may derail all talks happening.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

In a follow-up to this morning - The USA has present Iran with it's plan. So we should have some answers shortly about how this is all likely to play out. #TheHormuzCrisis

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Potentially. But it is hard to quantify. Trump could want to delay to show he has a mandate to attack. Just as true could be that he waits so Congress stays his hand and then he can blame them for the failures. Each scenario is as plausible.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Caution. “It is an arduous and eggy one…”

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Over the next 24–48 hours I am watching one thing above everything else. Does any action make reciprocal sequencing easier, or is somebody simply trying to make the other side blink first? That will tell us what comes next. #Hormuz #Shipping #MaritimeSecurity

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

What was once universal access becomes conditional access and what was once routine becomes managed. This opens up the need for naval protection, political permission, insurance availability and whatever workaround happens to remain viable that week. That is degradation.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Because rising exports do not necessarily mean the crisis has been solved. They can also mean the system has become better at functioning around the crisis. And that takes me back to the central argument I have been making since February. Systems rarely collapse neatly. They degrade.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

We are already seeing part of this. Middle Eastern oil exports have recovered substantially through alternative routes, pipeline capacity and maritime workarounds. This is even while the political dispute around Hormuz remains unresolved. That distinction matters.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

Instead, everyone else adapts around them. Saudi oil moves through alternative routes and tankers use ship-to-ship transfers. Buyers seek politically safer supply while insurers reprice risk models. Shipping finds another workaround and Hormuz remains dysfunctional for a long time.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

MODEL 6: NOBODY MOVES I think this may be the most important one for understanding the wider system. The USA keeps its blockade and financial pressure. Iran keeps its Hormuz leverage. Neither side concedes and nobody actually solves the problem.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

The problem is that an action intended to improve a negotiating position can very easily be interpreted as abandonment of negotiations. Then the other side responds. And suddenly something intended to force compromise has instead restarted the escalatory cycle.

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Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 30/09/2026

This is what we saw in part yesterday. The USA has not paused economic pressure while negotiations continue. The Treasury imposed another round of measures under Operation Economic Outcast and says enforcement against Iranian financial and procurement networks will continue.

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