The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre issued Warning 143-26 on Tuesday, 29 September, after a third-party report that a vessel had been struck by a suspected unknown projectile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Monday evening, 28 September, and that a fire had followed. UKMTO said the fire had been extinguished, the vessel was underway, the crew were safe, and there had been no reported environmental impact or damage assessment. It advised traffic to transit with caution. UKMTO does not name ships. It listed the product as suspicious activity, not as a confirmed attack. Lloyd’s List, Marisks and later The Maritime Executive, citing the IMO list, identified the hull as the Kuwait Oil Tanker Company very large crude carrier Al Funtas. That Monday-evening strike, reported late as a third-party warning, is the primary for this note. It is not a rewrite of Cape Dao on 23 September, of UKMTO Warnings 140-26 and 141-26, or of Sunday’s JMIC severe product already on this blog.
Equasis and ClassNK particulars match the identification. Al Funtas, IMO 9653408, MMSI 447184000, call sign 9KFH, is a 2014-built Kuwait-flag double-hull VLCC of 316,648 deadweight tonnes, 165,178 gross tonnes and 333 metres overall, delivered by Daewoo at Okpo and owned and managed by Kuwait Oil Tanker Company S.A.K., registered at Mina al Ahmadi. The Maritime Executive said the IMO had listed the latest Persian Gulf-area attack against that named tanker. Riviera, quoting Ambrey, put the impact north of Khasab, Oman. Vanguard Tech said the ship continued underway to a port of refuge. Fars, in an IRGC-linked Telegram post rendered in English by Riviera, said satellite images showed a Kuwaiti supertanker about 31.5 kilometres east of Khasab. UKMTO itself published none of those positions and did not confirm the name. Operators should keep the official product as an unnamed, time-late third-party warning and treat the KOTC identification as industry and IMO listing, not as a UKMTO hull confirmation.
The Maritime Executive said the tanker was transiting dark and did not report the strike directly to UKMTO or to MSCIO. Security services received the information late from a third party. gCaptain, writing the same Tuesday, said UKMTO classified Warning 143-26 as suspicious activity even while reporting that a vessel had been struck by a projectile, and used the delay to argue that the public incident record in Hormuz is incomplete. Iran had claimed over the weekend that its forces had targeted or intercepted 19 vessels outside Tehran-designated routes — 12 on Friday and seven on Saturday — without identifying the ships. The new warning confirms at least one hull was hit in that window. It does not validate the 19-ship claim. The absence of matching UKMTO attack products still weighs against treating that number as a census.
A named VLCC after a week’s lull, still outside the public AIS count
The last named merchant fatality in the strait on this blog was Cape Dao on 23 September: Antigua and Barbuda Capesize, IMO 9219020, two port-side impacts, engine-room fire, one Indian seafarer killed. Riviera said that if Monday’s hit is confirmed it would be the first since that hull. The Maritime Executive put the IMO’s confirmed Persian Gulf-area incident count at 86 and the confirmed death toll at 24, including the Cape Dao fatality and Indian-media confirmation of two seafarers from El Gaia whom the IMO list had still carried as missing. Those tallies are context. They are not a finding that Al Funtas produced a twenty-fifth death. UKMTO said the crew were safe.
Al Funtas was not on the Persian Gulf Strait Authority non-compliance list, according to The Maritime Executive, though Iran has threatened Kuwaiti tanker operations and listed other KOTC ships. The PGSA on 26 September, already used as context in this blog’s 28 September JMIC note, warned charterers that unauthorised Hormuz routes risked financial and human losses and that a violating charterer could put the company on the Non-Compliance List, restricting passage of all associated vessels. OFAC’s May 2026 SDN designation of the PGSA and FAQ 1249 — safe passage without payment; cooperating with declarations, fees or questionnaires can create U.S. exposure — remain the counter-stack. A Kuwait-flag VLCC that is not on the published NCL can still be hit, can still transit dark, and can still fail to appear in the same-day UKMTO feed. That is the operational point. It is not a reason to file a PGSA declaration.
The reporting gap is now part of the passage plan. gCaptain recalled that a 16 September attack was not public until 18 September as a verified time-late report, and that other September products, including an LPG tanker, also arrived after the fact. ADNOC said in August that 15 of its vessels had been targeted since the conflict began, with one crew member dead and 20 injured — a company total that cannot be reconciled line-by-line with unnamed UKMTO warnings. Kpler and vessel-tracking prints used in recent Reuters copy have sat around 18 visible commodity ships a day against a pre-war order of about 125 large commercial vessels. U.S. officials have published higher facilitated-flow figures, including the anonymous 60-ship / 22-million-barrel Wednesday already on this blog, because dark and military-coordinated transits do not land in the public AIS set. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that flows were averaging 15 to 22 million barrels a day. Independent trackers have generally been lower; Reuters-carried Kpler figures this month have put Hormuz crude in the high-single-digit millions of barrels a day, excluding AIS-off ships. Those datasets are not interchangeable. None of them is a sailing window, and none of them is a JMIC downgrade. JMIC’s severe product of 27–28 September still stands: IRGC attacks, attempted attacks and harassment had persisted, including UAV overflight and VHF hailing, with no confirmed attacks in the previous 72 hours at the time of that note. Monday evening’s hit lands after that 72-hour quiet line.
Operational implications for a dark VLCC in a time-late warning
A 316,000-deadweight-tonne Kuwait-flag crude carrier that is struck, catches fire, extinguishes, and proceeds to a port of refuge without a first-party report to UKMTO or MSCIO is a damage-control and reporting failure as well as a projectile event. The useful sentence from the bridge is a voice report while the event is happening, with flag, P&I, war-risk and a named company officer who owns next-of-kin starting the clock from that call, not from a Tuesday industry identification that UKMTO may never make. Ships that choose not to join the UKMTO Voluntary Reporting Scheme, gCaptain noted, may delay military assistance because authorities may not know they are there. Dark AIS can be a war-risk instruction. It is not a reason to go silent on UKMTO, MSCIO or the company’s own crisis line.
Firefighting and damage assessment remain open. UKMTO said the fire was out and that no environmental impact had been reported, and it also said there had been no damage assessment. Vanguard’s “port of refuge” line is the commercial next step: class, flag and terminal will want a survey before anyone treats the ship as a sound VLCC stem. Charterers and cargo interests should not assume that “underway, crew safe” restores the original discharge window. A VLCC that has taken a projectile and fought a fire is a casualty until a class survey says otherwise, even if it is still making way north or south of Khasab.
Passage plans for any remaining Hormuz, Musandam, Fujairah or Gulf of Oman movement should assume a projectile can arrive after dark, that the ship may already be AIS-off, that Iran’s 19-vessel weekend claim will not be matched by 19 UKMTO warnings, and that one time-late product can still be a named national-oil-company VLCC that was not on the NCL. BMP MS, citadel and firefighting readiness belong on the pre-arrival checklist for the strait the same way they do for a declared high-risk area. MARAD’s 30-nautical-mile standoff from U.S. units and the standing instruction not to comply with Iranian over-the-horizon VHF or email routing orders are unchanged. A southern Omani facilitation track is not a convoy escort and is not a guarantee against a projectile. Sunday’s JMIC severe rating is not retired by a “crew safe” line on Monday night.
What Operators Should Note
- Put Warning 143-26 in the bridge pack as a time-late projectile-and-fire, not as a rumour. UKMTO: suspected unknown projectile, Monday evening 28 September, fire extinguished, vessel underway, crew safe, no reported environmental impact, no damage assessment. Classified as suspicious activity, not as a confirmed attack. Third-party report. Traffic was told to transit with caution.
- Treat the KOTC name as industry and IMO listing, not as a UKMTO confirmation. Lloyd’s List, Marisks, Riviera and The Maritime Executive identify Al Funtas, IMO 9653408, 316,648 deadweight tonnes, Kuwait flag, KOTC owned and managed, 2014, 333 metres. UKMTO did not publish the name, flag or position. If the hull is yours, start from the warning and the company report, not from a later press identification.
- Do not transit silent just because AIS is off. The Maritime Executive said the tanker was dark and did not report directly to UKMTO or MSCIO. The product arrived late from a third party. Register the voyage under the UKMTO Voluntary Reporting Scheme, keep MSCIO in the same loop, and make the first call while the event is happening. Dark AIS is not a substitute for a voice report.
- Budget a port-of-refuge survey before anyone treats the stem as sound. Vanguard said the ship continued to a port of refuge. UKMTO said there was no damage assessment. A VLCC that has taken a projectile and fought a fire needs class, flag and P&I attendance. Charterers should not assume the original discharge window.
- Do not read the NCL, the 19-ship claim or a higher U.S. flow figure as a clearance. Al Funtas was not on the published PGSA list and was still hit, in the industry identification. Iran’s weekend claim of 19 targeted or intercepted vessels remains unverified. Visible AIS prints remain a fraction of pre-war traffic; facilitated and dark transits sit in other datasets. None of that is a JMIC downgrade or a Hormuz reopen.
- Keep Sunday’s severe product and last week’s named hulls in the same briefing. JMIC’s 27–28 September severe rating, Cape Dao on 23 September, and Warnings 140-26 and 141-26 are not cancelled by a “crew safe” line on Al Funtas. Brief the next Musandam transit on projectile, fire and time-late reporting, not on a week’s lull.
- Keep OFAC and Iranian routing instructions in the SMS. PGSA threats to charterers over unauthorised routes do not create a lawful toll. FAQ 1249 still treats cooperation with declarations, fees or questionnaires as U.S. exposure. Do not comply with Iranian over-the-horizon VHF or email routing orders. MARAD’s 30-nautical-mile U.S.-unit standoff is unchanged.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining UKMTO Warning 143-26 against the industry identification of KOTC’s Al Funtas so operators can treat a time-late Hormuz projectile and fire on a dark VLCC as a reporting, damage-control and survey problem, not as a closed “crew safe” story.
