The Al Salmi strike off Dubai and what the AIS signals tell you about the operating environment in the Gulf right now

Early this morning an Iranian drone struck the Al Salmi, a Kuwait-flagged VLCC anchored off Dubai Port. The ship was fully laden with about 2 million barrels of Kuwaiti and Saudi crude bound for Qingdao. Hull damage, fire onboard, all 24 crew safe, no spill reported so far.

The part worth paying attention to is what the ship was doing on AIS. Maritime trackers show the vessel had its destination set to "CHINA CARGO" with a Qingdao port code. Thats not how AIS normally works. You put the destination port, not a label advertising who the cargo belongs to. Ships across the Gulf have been doing this for weeks now, tagging nationality and cargo origin into their transpoder signals to try to signal they're not hostile to Iranian forces. The Al Salmi did everything right and it still got hit.

The ship loaded in late February and has been anchored off Dubai since early March. Couldn't get through Hormuz, no cargo transfer, just sitting there waiting. From what I've seen on Kpler there's something like 50+ million barrels of crude stuck on tankers across the Gulf in the same position right now. Loaded, stranded, and as of this morning, clearly not safe even at anchor in UAE waters.

This isn't a one-off either. The Gas Al Ahmadiah, another KOTC vessel, took a projectile near Fujairah on March 17. Kuwait's own ports at Shuwaikh and Bubiyan Island were hit on March 27. The targeting pattern is expanding, not contracting.

If vessels at anchor in UAE waters aren't safe, every owner and insurer still thinking about Gulf operations just got a new data point. The options are paying Iran's $2 million tollway or running for the Red Sea and taking the Bab el-Mandeb risk instead.

Neither is great but the tollway development is worth watching. If it actually functions and vessels start moving through, the stranded tonnage problem at least has an outlet even if it's an ugly one.