{"id":956,"date":"2026-10-10T03:33:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/ukmto-logs-a-projectile-fire-west-of-al-jazeera-after-warning-160-26\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T03:33:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:33:02","slug":"ukmto-logs-a-projectile-fire-west-of-al-jazeera-after-warning-160-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/ukmto-logs-a-projectile-fire-west-of-al-jazeera-after-warning-160-26\/","title":{"rendered":"UKMTO logs a projectile fire west of Al Jazeera after Warning 160-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre issued Warning 160-26 on Friday, 9 October. It is an Attack product, source third party, timed at 1000 UTC. UKMTO said it had received a report of an incident 13 nautical miles west of Al Jazeera, United Arab Emirates. Multiple sources reported that the vessel had been struck by an unknown projectile, causing a fire which has since been extinguished. Status of the crew, damage assessment and environmental impact were unknown at the time of the product. Authorities were investigating. Vessels were advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO. The official PDF named neither hull, flag, cargo, projectile type, casualty count nor a responsible party.<\/p>\n

Reuters, carried the same evening by Arab News and Al Arabiya, USNI News and Newsquawk all carried the unnamed Friday product. That is the working primary. 160-26 is a southern-Gulf file, not a Strait of Hormuz reprint, not a rewrite of Wednesday\u2019s dedicated Warning 158-26 north of Qatar, and not a later-tape increment of Thursday\u2019s dedicated Joint Maritime Information Center Update 103. The useful facts for a DPA and a Gulf master are the projectile-and-fire line, the unknown crew line, and a position on the UAE coast well west of the TSS. Do not invent an attacker from market colour, and do not treat an industry name as a UKMTO naming.<\/p>\n

What UKMTO published on Friday, and what it did not<\/h2>\n

160-26 is an Attack warning, not a suspicious-activity note. The third-party line is short: vessel, unknown projectile, fire extinguished, 13 nautical miles west of Al Jazeera, investigating. That combination is a fire-main and medical-unknown problem before it is a naming exercise. A master has to brief boundary cooling, a possible disabled-hull lookout and a possible request for assistance while the after end or cargo deck may still be the target. UKMTO did not say the ship was a tanker. It did not say the ship was underway. It did not say the ship was at anchor. It did not report how many people were on board. The extinguished-fire line is a snapshot, not a completed class survey. The missing environmental line is an omission, not a completed MARPOL finding.<\/p>\n

Hold the source tag. Warning 158-26 on Wednesday was source verified. Friday\u2019s product is source third party. That is a weaker confirmation bar, not a reason to discard the warning. It is a reason not to brief Friday as a master-sourced UKMTO file. Stay with \u201cmultiple sources\u201d and \u201cunknown projectile.\u201d UKMTO did not name a UAV, a missile, a mine or IRGC. No group has claimed the attack on the English primaries used. Do not back-fit Wednesday\u2019s 158-26 multiple-projectile casualty, Tuesday\u2019s dedicated On Peace India\/Oman casualty, or Monday\u2019s 156-26 engine-room fire onto Friday\u2019s unnamed hull.<\/p>\n

A UAE-coast position, not a Hormuz TSS product<\/h2>\n

The geography is the operational point. UKMTO placed the incident 13 nautical miles west of Al Jazeera, UAE. That is inside the Arabian Gulf, on the Emirates\u2019 inner coast, not in the Strait of Hormuz TSS and not on the Fujairah \/ Gulf of Oman roadstead. Reuters\u2019 security sources said on Friday that the strike sat outside the Hormuz area and indicated a widening of risk for ships. USNI News, writing the same afternoon, treated Friday\u2019s advisory as the second inner-Gulf hit of the week after Wednesday\u2019s unnamed tanker off Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar. Hold the official range and reference point. Do not invent a latitude and longitude, a TSS lane, a named emirate anchorage, or a territorial-sea call. UKMTO did not make a coastal-state finding.<\/p>\n

Update 103, information cut-off 081500 UTC on Thursday, 8 October, is still the last numbered JMIC regional note on the bridge. It held the Strait of Hormuz at SEVERE and the Arabian Gulf at MODERATE, called 158-26 the first confirmed Gulf attack or disruption since 9 September, and asked for continued monitoring. Friday\u2019s 1000 UTC product sits outside that cut-off. Do not treat Update 103 as a Friday all-clear for UAE-coast legs, and do not treat a Hormuz SEVERE rating as a finding that inner-Gulf legs are quiet. Do not rewrite Update 103 on the strength of one later third-party warning.<\/p>\n

Industry matching of GEM NO.2 is colour, not a UKMTO name<\/h2>\n

UKMTO does not typically name vessels. Reuters, citing two shipping and security sources, said the vessel struck was the Panama-flagged crude supertanker GEM NO.2. Vanguard, the British maritime risk group, used the same name and the same 13-nautical-mile \/ 1000 GMT geometry, and said the vessel had issued a distress alert indicating a fire onboard which was subsequently extinguished. Reuters said the Panama-based operator listed in shipping databases as Gem No.2 Maritime Corp could not be reached for comment. LSEG ship-tracking data on Friday showed the last position of a fully laden tanker at anchor off the UAE coast. Those lines are industry matching. They are not a UKMTO naming and not a JMIC print.<\/p>\n

Open registers list GEM NO.2 as IMO 9735373, MMSI 354264000, call sign 3FQW3, a 2017 Panama crude tanker of about 330 by 60 metres and about 302,783 tonnes deadweight. VesselFinder\u2019s live AIS on the same hull showed it at the Al Hamriyah anchorage, draught about 20.5 metres, destination FOR ORDERS. Treat those particulars as colour on the matched name. Do not upgrade them to an official cargo, load port or damage survey. Do not merge Friday\u2019s Al Jazeera product with the unused Fujairah-roadstead fire colour on Marshall Islands VLCC Dhalkut. That is a Gulf of Oman file. 160-26 is a west-of-Al-Jazeera file.<\/p>\n

What this is not<\/h2>\n

160-26 sits after a week of Hormuz and Gulf Attack products that already have dedicated files. Warning 158-26, 7 October, 1900 UTC, source verified, unnamed tanker 51 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal, multiple projectiles, casualties reported. Warning 159-26, issued 8 October for a 6 October 1709 UTC incident, time-late verified source, unnamed crude in the Strait of Hormuz, no casualties, damage and environment unknown; it is not on Update 103\u2019s confirmed table. Update 103 named 157-26 as ON PEACE and left 158-26 name-withheld. Friday is a new numbered product, not a naming of 158-26, not a 159-26 rewrite, and not a JMIC Update 104. Do not collapse 160-26 into On Peace, Maran Gas Mystras, Acers-matching colour on 158-26, or the dedicated 8 October wartime-weekly-high count.<\/p>\n

CNBC\u2019s 9 October Hormuz-tempo piece and USNI\u2019s same-day Lloyd\u2019s List webinar recap are weekly-context colour. They are not Friday\u2019s primary. Reuters\u2019 earlier Iran-warning colour that Tehran would block unauthorised Hormuz routes remains unused as a dedicated transit-rule instrument. Oman\u2019s Article 10 AIS-on rule inside territorial waters was not withdrawn and does not apply as a UAE instrument. Do not fold 160-26 into Yanbu loadings, the UAE MPCI container-filing mandate, Japan\u2019s 35-ship vessel-level permit, Thursday\u2019s OFAC\/State 22-tanker package, or Iran\u2019s Persian Gulf Strait Authority declaration channel. Those are crude-export, documentation, sanctions and coastal-state products. Friday\u2019s file is an unnamed vessel, unknown projectile, fire extinguished, crew and environment unknown, 13 nautical miles west of Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Operational implications<\/h2>\n

A projectile hit with an extinguished fire and an unknown crew line is a different night order from an unnamed Hormuz engine-room fire with the crew reported safe. Masters already in the approaches to Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, the Al Hamriyah and Khalidia boxes, Jebel Ali and the southern-Gulf STS areas need a written projectile watch on the UAE inner-coast leg, not only on the southern Omani corridor and not only on the Qatar north coast after 158-26. Citadel, fire-main isolation, inert-gas and cargo-tank integrity, emergency generator and steering-gear redundancy are the standing orders. The unknown-crew line means a possible request for helicopter or boat transfer and a possible diversion to a nearby Emirates port. UKMTO did not say the ship needed tugs and did not say it did not. A fully laden VLCC, if the industry match holds, is a pollution-watch problem even though no environmental line was published.<\/p>\n

Managers who later recognise the 160-26 hull as theirs should assume flag, class and P&I will ask for the master\u2019s report, the VDR, the last position before the hit, the distress-alert time, the fire-extinguishing log, the casualty list if any, and whether emergency power and steering were restored. Charterers still stemming UAE, Qatar, Saudi or Kuwaiti crude through the southern Gulf should treat Friday as a second kinetic day on a leg that Update 103 had left at MODERATE. Do not brief the combination of restored September export volumes and a second inner-Gulf Attack product as a reason to drop BMP, war-risk clauses or a lookout for a disabled tanker that may be AIS-dark.<\/p>\n

Hold the published hygiene from Update 103 for the strait itself: neutral transit, prompt answers to military queries, NAVCENT NCAGS for any Iran-port humanitarian exception, and no cargo loaded in Iran beyond fuel and stores on an approved exemption. Friday\u2019s file does not rewrite that blockade picture. It also does not convert a UAE-coast range into an Iran-port call. If the industry match is a laden VLCC at anchor, the watch is not only for ships on passage. Ships waiting off the Emirates for orders, STS or a berth are in the same geometry UKMTO printed.<\/p>\n

What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n