By Florence Tan
SINGAPORE, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed over the weekend, data showed on Monday, following attacks on tankers, while U.S.-Iran talks to resolve the Middle East conflict stalled.
Five commodity vessels transited the strait on Saturday, with none registered for Sunday, shiptracking data from Kpler showed, versus 31 in the prior weekend.
Ships entering the strait on Saturday included an empty Very Large Crude Carrier with its Automatic Identification System switched off and an Indian-flagged Very Large Gas Carrier that used the Iranian route, Kpler data showed.
A small tanker laden with Iranian fuel oil exited, it showed.
Shipping appeared to grind to a near standstill after the United Arab Emirates said three vessels operated by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company were attacked in transit last week.
The United States said it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely.
Some ships may pass through undetected with transponders off, but the figures are far from the more than 130 ships a day that traversed the Strait of Hormuz before the war launched by the U.S. and Israel on Iran in February.
Washington must meet Iran’s conditions regarding the strait in order for shipping to resume, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an interview with local media on Saturday.
The waterway handled a fifth of the world’s shipments of crude oil and liquefied natural gas before the war.
At the Bab el-Mandeb strait, where Yemeni Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on July 20, Kpler data showed 49 weekend transits by commodity vessels, down from 55 in the prior week. There were no tracked Saudi oil shipments.
(Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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