The Hydrographer of Pakistan issued NAVAREA IX 434/26 at 091500 UTC on 9 November as a Northern Gulf / Kuwait bathymetric-survey warning. The official text, retrieved from the National Hydrographic Office product file 20261109SEC 434.txt, puts a bathymetric survey in progress by six named vessels in an eight-point area off Kuwait. The charts cited are BA 1223, 2884, 3773 and KU 1. Mariners are cautioned. Paragraph 2 cancels NAVAREA IX 378/26. The notice does not print a cancel DTG against 434/26 itself. That is the working primary. It is a numbered Northern Gulf survey product on Kuwait approaches water. It is not a rewrite of Friday morning’s dedicated 431/26 Fujairah jack-up on SKATE 3D, not a reprint of Friday night’s dedicated 432/26 Southern Gulf drifting container, and not a conversion of 433/26’s self-cancelling in-force list into a named-hull survey.
Pakistan’s NAVAREA IX in-force table, as of Monday 9 November, now opens with 434/26 as the first row: DTG 091500 UTC 9 November, region Northern Gulf / Kuwait, description BATHYMETRIC SURVEY. Hold that table spelling. The same Monday table still carries 433/26 as the second row, DTG 070300 UTC 7 November, described as INFORCE LIST — same-board wrap on this file, unused as a dedicated piece. 432/26 remains Friday night’s dedicated Southern Gulf container through 082359 UTC 8 November; the Monday listing is now a stale row, not a live 9 November caution. 431/26 remains Friday morning’s dedicated Fujairah geotechnical survey on SKATE 3D through 132359 UTC 13 November. Masters who brief Monday night as a Hormuz Attack, as a Kuwait port closure, as SKATE 3D moved north, or as a second 378/26 reprint will have merged a compact named-hull survey box into either a security wreck, a harbour jack-up or a cancelled October product.
That is the working primary. Monday night’s product is a six-hull bathymetric survey in progress off Kuwait, not a rewrite of Friday morning’s dedicated 431/26, not a reprint of dedicated 290/26’s Fujairah reclamation buoys, not this morning’s dedicated IMO 130-count on Vieila, and not last night’s dedicated Update 112. It names Northern Gulf. It names Kuwait. It names four charts. It names six vessels inside a single quoted list. It names eight corners. It names mariners cautioned. It cancels 378/26. It does not name an IMO number, an MMSI, a flag, a RAM status, a VHF working channel, a numeric berth, a diving window, a keep-clear radius or a port-closure sentence. It does not print a kill time against 434/26. Last night’s dedicated Update 112, ICOD 081300 UTC 8 November, remains the last numbered JMIC public note. This morning’s dedicated IMO 130-count remains Vieila (IMO 9234654), Damaged, no pollution, as at 6 November. Those files sit on different coordinators. Do not brief Monday night as a Hormuz reopen because a Kuwait survey is now the top NHO row.
What the warning actually printed
The hydrographic text is short and is the working primary. DTG 091500 UTC NOV 2026. NAVAREA IX 434/26. NORTHERN GULF. KUWAIT. CHARTS BA 1223, 2884, 3773 AND KU 1. 1. BATHYMETRIC SURVEY IS IN PROGRESS BY VESSELS ‘VISION 2, MOSAAID 01001, NAIA, KNOZE 7, SEP 2 AND AL-NOWKHADA ABOODAH’ IN FOLLOWING AREA: A. 29-01.26N 048-09.51E B. 29-01.61N 048-11.35E C. 29-01.72N 048-11.32E D. 29-01.84N 048-11.94E E. 29-01.42N 048-12.09E F. 29-01.30N 048-11.46E G. 29-01.40N 048-11.42E H. 29-01.04N 048-09.56E. MARINERS CAUTIONED. 2. CANCEL NAVAREA IX 378/26. Stay with that wording. The coordinator printed a single opening quote ahead of VISION 2 and closed it after AL-NOWKHADA ABOODAH; do not split that list into six separately quoted hulls, and do not tidy MOSAAID 01001, KNOZE 7 or AL-NOWKHADA ABOODAH into other spellings. The NHO table printed BATHYMETRIC SURVEY; do not silently tidy that into “seabed mapping” on the table line. The coordinator printed neither an IMO number, an MMSI, a flag, a call sign, a RAM status, a VHF working channel, a numeric berth in cables or metres, a diving window, a guard-ship name, a port-closure sentence nor a keep-clear radius around the eight corners. Stay with the eight corners, the six named hulls, Northern Gulf / Kuwait, mariners cautioned, and the cancel of 378/26.
The geometry is the first briefing fact. The eight corners sit between about 29-01.04N and 29-01.84N, 048-09.51E and 048-12.09E — a compact Northern Gulf box on the order of eight-tenths of a nautical mile north–south and a little more than two nautical miles east–west, on BA 1223 / 2884 / 3773 / KU 1 water off Kuwait, not in the Strait of Hormuz, not in the Port of Fujairah, and not in Friday night’s dedicated 432/26 container plot at 25-09.71N 054-54.06E. Plot the corners. A passage plan that only carried Friday morning’s SKATE 3D harbour box, or that treated Northern Gulf Kuwait water as empty because this morning’s dedicated files sat at Tango 833A and on the IMO 130-count, has not budgeted six named survey hulls on the Kuwait approaches from 091500 UTC 9 November. Do not treat Mina Al Ahmadi, Shuaiba, Mina Abdullah or Kuwait as closed. Do not treat the Strait of Hormuz as this box. Do not run 9 November as if BA 1223 water were empty of survey plant.
The clock is the second briefing fact. 434/26 carries a 091500 UTC 9 November issue time, a survey “in progress,” and a cancel of 378/26. It does not print CANCEL THIS MSG against 434/26. That is an open survey on the Monday plot, not a two-hour window and not a dated 13 November kill of the kind Friday morning’s 431/26 carries. A passage plan that drops the box at dusk on 9 November has under-read an in-progress product. A passage plan that treats 29-01.26N 048-09.51E as a charted obstruction after a later NAVAREA cancels 434/26 without reading that later number has over-read tonight’s text. The coordinator did not print daily hours. Do not invent a 0800–1600 UTC working window. Do not invent a night suspension. Do not invent a 132359 UTC 13 November cancel borrowed from 431/26. Hold the survey as in progress from the 091500 UTC stamp until a later NAVAREA cancels it.
The missing IMO, MMSI, flag, RAM, radius and numeric-berth lines are omissions, not a completed survey order. Do not invent Channel 16 as a survey working channel. Do not borrow 431/26’s SKATE 3D platform, 411/26’s Qatar pipelay berth, or 290/26’s buoy list onto a polygon that already says mariners cautioned. Give the eight corners and the six named hulls. Do not invent a one-nautical-mile halo around them. Do not promote an open-register MMSI, a flag, or an IMO number onto any of VISION 2, MOSAAID 01001, NAIA, KNOZE 7, SEP 2 or AL-NOWKHADA ABOODAH. The NAVAREA named the hulls. It did not name their registers.
Same-board wrap, not this berth: 433/26, 070300 UTC 7 November, SELF CANCELLING, NAVIGATIONAL WARNINGS INFORCE, unused as dedicated. 432/26 remains Friday night’s dedicated Southern Gulf floating and partially submerged container at 25-09.71N 054-54.06E, cancel 082359 UTC 8 November — now past; the Monday NHO row is a stale listing, not a live 9 November caution. 431/26 remains Friday morning’s dedicated SKATE 3D geotechnical survey at Port of Fujairah through 132359 UTC 13 November. 428/26 remains unused Amaala Triple Bay seaplane wrap. 427/26 remains dedicated Shura Island seaplane zone. 425/26 remains the dedicated Selat Storm wreck. 414/26 remains the dedicated November Pakistan firing series through 302000 UTC 30 November. 290/26 remains the in-force Fujairah reclamation-buoy line. 378/26 is the product 434/26 cancels; the Monday table still lists it as row 19, BATHYMETRIC SURVEY, with a garbled DTG cell — a stale listing, not a second live Kuwait survey. Do not restore 378/26 because the table still prints it. Those clocks are separate.
What this is not
This is not a rewrite of 431/26, and it is not SKATE 3D moved to Kuwait. Friday morning’s dedicated 431/26 remains a Port of Fujairah geotechnical survey by self-elevating platform SKATE 3D, four corners around 25-09.6N 056-22.5E, mariners cautioned, cancel 132359 UTC 13 November, charts BA 2858, 3520 and 3526. 434/26 names neither Fujairah nor SKATE 3D. 431/26 names neither Kuwait nor VISION 2. A passage plan that drops the Fujairah jack-up because a Kuwait survey is now the top NHO row has deleted a 6–13 November harbour product the coordinator has not cancelled. A passage plan that files 434/26 under “SKATE 3D” has put six named hulls on the wrong coast.
This is not a rewrite of 432/26, and it is not a second Southern Gulf container. Friday night’s dedicated 432/26 remains an adrift floating and partially submerged shipping container in the vicinity of 25-09.71N 054-54.06E, mariners requested to navigate with extreme caution, cancel 082359 UTC 8 November. That cancel is now past. 434/26 prints neither a container nor 25-09.71N. Do not brief Monday night as “the Dubai approaches container moved to Kuwait.” Do not restore 432/26 because the Monday table still lists it. Do not convert a bathymetric survey into a floating-object casualty.
This is not a rewrite of 433/26, and it is not a new in-force catalogue. 433/26 remains the 070300 UTC 7 November self-cancelling list of navigational warnings in force, unused as dedicated. Its 2026 series still closed, when last retrieved, at 427, 428, 431 AND 432. 434/26 is a new numbered survey issued after that list. Do not treat 433/26 as having already included 434. Do not treat 434/26 as a reprint of the catalogue. A later in-force list that adds 434 will be a later product.
This is not a rewrite of 378/26, and it is not a second October Kuwait survey left live. Paragraph 2 of tonight’s notice cancels NAVAREA IX 378/26. The Monday NHO table still prints 378/26 as a Northern Gulf Kuwait bathymetric survey with a garbled DTG cell. That row is stale. Do not keep 378/26 as a working caution beside 434/26. Do not invent 378/26’s corners onto tonight’s eight-point box. Tonight’s geometry is the eight corners printed in 434/26. The cancel is the whole relationship between the two numbers.
This is not a security-incident NAVAREA and not a wreck product. 425/26 remains the dedicated Selat Storm wreck. 420/26 remains the dedicated RITI fire-and-anchor. 417/26 remains the dedicated Quba wreck. 389/26 remains the Gulf of Oman oil-tanker security-incident caution. This morning’s dedicated IMO 130-count remains Vieila (IMO 9234654), 5 November, 16 nautical miles east of Khasab, Damaged, no pollution, 130 confirmed, 25 seafarer fatalities as at 6 November. Dedicated Update 112 remains the 8 November JMIC note, ICOD 081300 UTC, 177 confirmed, Hormuz SEVERE, first JMIC naming of HUDA against dedicated 198-26. Dedicated 197-26, 199-26 and 200-26 remain unnamed UKMTO tanker files. 434/26 names none of those hulls, prints no projectile, and does not sit east of Khasab. Do not brief Monday night as a sixth Musandam Attack because a Kuwait survey is the new top NHO row.
This is not 411/26, and it is not a Qatar pipelay rewrite. 411/26 remains the dedicated McDermott DB30 subsea-pipeline berth in the central Gulf / Qatar. 434/26 is a Northern Gulf Kuwait bathymetric box, not a Qatar trench. This is also not NAVAREA III 0169/26 on Britoil Centurion, not Irakleio 1411/26 on Abeille Marengo, not Irakleio 1404/26 on Kobi Ruegg, and not HNHS 1336/26 on NG Surveyor. Those are survey and cable products on other coordinators. They do not belong on a 29-01N Kuwait watch.
This is not a Kuwait, Shuaiba, Mina Al Ahmadi or Hormuz port closure, not a TSS change, and not a rewrite of 219/26’s Dubai no-anchoring zone. 434/26 prints mariners cautioned inside eight Northern Gulf corners. It does not close Kuwait. It does not close the offshore anchorage. It does not reopen Hormuz. It does not cancel 431/26, 414/26, 425/26 or 290/26. It is not a Houthi merchant-attack product. Update 112 still prints the last confirmed Houthi merchant attack as 24 August. 434/26 prints a bathymetric survey in progress — not a strike, not a projectile, and not a keep-clear in nautical miles.
Operational implications
For a master inbound to Kuwait, Shuaiba, Mina Al Ahmadi or Mina Abdullah, shifting between the oil-terminal approaches and Northern Gulf waiting water, or bunkering and waiting on BA 1223 / 2884 / 3773 / KU 1 this week, 434/26 is a harbour-approaches plot amendment before it is a survey story. The eight corners sit in a compact box on the order of eight-tenths by a little more than two nautical miles. The notice names six hulls. It does not print a vertical limit, a lighting scheme, a VHF working channel, a named guard ship, or a numeric berth. Mariners cautioned is the whole instruction, with 378/26 cancelled and with no printed kill against 434/26. A passage plan that treats 29-01.26N 048-09.51E as a charted obstruction after a later cancel of 434/26 without reading that later number has over-read an in-progress survey. A passage plan that only annotates “survey, Kuwait” without the eight corners and the six hulls has under-read a numbered NAVAREA that exists to be plotted.
378/26 is the second Kuwait problem on the same Monday table, and it is the wrong one to keep. Paragraph 2 cancels it. Hulls working Northern Gulf Kuwait water tonight need 434/26, not a stale October row. Do not assume 378/26 is still the working bathymetric product because it still appears as row 19. Do not assume 434/26 is idle because the fixture is “only an anchorage wait.” The coordinator issued a new number against the approaches and killed the previous survey number.
For DPAs with Kuwait, Shuaiba, Mina Al Ahmadi, Northern Gulf, Hormuz, Fujairah or Gulf of Oman stems this week, the operational question is whether the planned track clips the eight-corner list, not whether Kuwait “closed the oil terminals.” 434/26 does not close the terminals. It does not close the offshore anchorage. It does not reopen Hormuz. It does not cancel 431/26, 414/26, 425/26 or 290/26. A fixture that only budgeted this morning’s Tango 833A gunfiring, this morning’s IMO 130-count on Vieila, or Friday morning’s SKATE 3D harbour box has not budgeted six named survey hulls on the Kuwait approaches from 091500 UTC 9 November. 414/26 remains the November four-box Pakistan firing product through 30 November. 431/26 remains the Fujairah jack-up through 13 November. Those clocks are separate.
The stale rows on this Monday’s NHO table are a second briefing trap. 432/26 is still printed as a floating or partially submerged container. That notice cancelled at 082359 UTC 8 November. 378/26 is still printed as a bathymetric survey. Tonight’s notice cancels it. Do not restore those products because the Monday table still lists them. Do not treat 434/26 as the replacement for 432/26; a Kuwait survey does not cancel a Southern Gulf container. The new work is the eight-corner named-hull box. 433/26 is the 7 November in-force catalogue, unused as dedicated. Everything else on the Monday table is either a dedicated earlier file or a stale listing.
Do not recast 9 November as a Kuwait exclusion zone inside the eight corners, a named-hull casualty, a rewrite of 431/26, a rewrite of 378/26 left live, or a Hormuz product. The confirmed facts are NAVAREA IX 434/26, 091500 UTC 9 November, Northern Gulf / Kuwait, BA 1223 / 2884 / 3773 / KU 1, six named hulls, eight corners, mariners cautioned, 378/26 cancelled, no printed kill against 434/26, with 433/26 the same-board in-force-list wrap and dedicated 431/26 still in force on the same Monday table.
What Operators Should Note
- Log 434/26 as a Kuwait approaches bathymetric survey, not as a port closure and not as a Hormuz file. NAVAREA IX 434/26, 091500 UTC 9 November. Northern Gulf / Kuwait. Charts BA 1223, 2884, 3773 and KU 1. Bathymetric survey in progress by vessels ‘VISION 2, MOSAAID 01001, NAIA, KNOZE 7, SEP 2 AND AL-NOWKHADA ABOODAH’ in following area: 29-01.26N 048-09.51E / 29-01.61N 048-11.35E / 29-01.72N 048-11.32E / 29-01.84N 048-11.94E / 29-01.42N 048-12.09E / 29-01.30N 048-11.46E / 29-01.40N 048-11.42E / 29-01.04N 048-09.56E. Mariners cautioned. Cancel NAVAREA IX 378/26. Official file
20261109SEC 434.txt. NHO Monday table: first row, BATHYMETRIC SURVEY. The notice names neither IMO, MMSI, flag, RAM, VHF, numeric berth, a keep-clear radius nor a harbour-master closure. Hold the printed hull list inside one pair of quotes. This is not 431/26, not 432/26, not 433/26, not 378/26 left live, and not a Kuwait shutdown. - Plot one compact 29-01N polygon, not Fujairah and not Hormuz. The eight corners sit about 0.8 by a little more than 2 nautical miles off Kuwait on BA 1223 / 2884 / 3773 / KU 1. Do not slide the box south to 25-10N Fujairah. Do not slide it to 26-22N Selat Storm. Do not invent a VHF working channel, a numeric berth, a diving window or a night suspension. Do not promote an open-register MMSI or flag onto any of the six named hulls. 431/26 remains the dedicated Fujairah SKATE 3D survey through 132359 UTC 13 November — unused as a rewrite, still in force, not cancelled by 434/26.
- Give the in-progress stamp, then wait for a later cancel of 434/26. In progress from 091500 UTC 9 November. No CANCEL THIS MSG against 434/26. 378/26 is cancelled. Do not treat the box as a 9 November day-only window. Do not drop it at dusk on 9 November. Do not borrow 431/26’s 132359 UTC 13 November kill. Do not invent daily working hours. Watch a later NAVAREA that moves 29-01.26N 048-09.51E, adds a radius / RAM / VHF / IMO, or prints a kill against 434/26.
- Keep the stale NHO rows and the in-force catalogue off the live folder. 433/26 remains the 070300 UTC 7 November self-cancelling in-force list, unused as dedicated. 432/26 cancelled at 082359 UTC 8 November; the Monday listing is stale. 378/26 is cancelled by paragraph 2 of tonight’s notice; the Monday listing is stale. Do not restore those numbers because they still appear on the 9 November table.
- Keep the Hormuz wrecks, the Fujairah jack-up and the Pakistan firing series on their own files. 425/26 remains dedicated Selat Storm. 420/26 remains dedicated RITI. 417/26 remains dedicated Quba. 427/26 remains dedicated Shura Island. 428/26 remains unused Amaala wrap. 414/26 remains the November four-box product through 302000 UTC 30 November. 411/26 remains the Qatar pipelay berth. 389/26 Petro Dolphin remains an in-force security-incident caution. 290/26 remains the dedicated August Fujairah reclamation-buoy field. Dedicated 197-26, 198-26, 199-26, 200-26, last night’s Update 112 and this morning’s IMO 130-count on Vieila remain their own dedicated files. UKMTO still ends at dedicated 200-26. No 201-26, no Update 113 and no IMO 131 board row this run.
- Kuwait, Shuaiba, Mina Al Ahmadi and Hormuz are not closed by this notice. Northern Gulf traffic now carries six named survey hulls on an eight-corner approaches plot from 091500 UTC 9 November, with 378/26 cancelled beside it. Watch a later NAVAREA that moves 29-01.26N 048-09.51E, adds a radius / RAM / VHF / IMO, or prints a kill against 434/26 — not a completed sounding campaign, not a Fujairah rewrite, and not a Hormuz file.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining NAVAREA IX 434/26 against the still-in-force 431/26 Fujairah jack-up and against last night’s dedicated Hormuz and IMO files so operators can treat the six-hull Kuwait survey as a numbered 9 November caution, not as a port closure or a security wreck.
