Hormuz: two tankers hit on Monday as Iran holds to its three conditions

Iran says it has passed three conditions to Washington for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and that until they are met the strait stays shut. Pakistan is one of the channels the message is moving through.

The three conditions

Mohsen Rezaei, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, set them out: an end to the war on all fronts, the release of Iran's frozen funds, and an end to the naval blockade.

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is acting as chief negotiator, said on Sunday that "as long as the conditions are not met and the US commitments are not honoured, it will be impossible to return to the situation from before the negotiations and to an open strait."

Qatar carried the conditions to Washington. Pakistan is also named as an intermediary, and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi was due in Tehran for talks.

Iran restricted transit through the strait after the fighting that began in late February. About a fifth of the world's oil demand normally passes through it.

Monday: two tankers hit inside the strait

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre reported two incidents in the strait on Monday. The UK-flagged tanker La Stephanie was struck by an unknown projectile while making an inbound transit, which British security firm Vanguard Tech assessed as a drone strike, and two crew were slightly hurt. A second vessel, an LPG tanker, was hit by debris from a projectile. Both carried on to their next port under their own power.

Nobody has claimed either strike. The practical point for Pakistan is not the damage, which was minor, but the insurance: war-risk premiums on Gulf transits are priced off exactly these reports, and that premium sits inside the landed cost of every cargo that reaches Karachi and Port Qasim.

Why this sits on top of your fuel bill

Pakistan imports almost all of its crude and a large share of its refined petrol and diesel, and most of it comes from the Gulf. A closed Hormuz does not just raise the price of the barrel. It raises the freight and the war-risk insurance premium on every cargo, and those land in the ex-refinery price that OGRA uses to set the pump rate on the 1st and the 16th of each month.

Today the notified rates are Rs 389.14 a litre for petrol and Rs 424.04 for diesel. Our full history is on the petrol price page and the diesel price page.

Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik warned last week that a real supply break could push petrol towards Rs 1,000 a litre. That is a worst case, not a forecast, and we set out what would have to go wrong in our piece on that warning.

What a move would cost you

Work it in kilometres rather than headlines. A Suzuki Alto doing 18 km per litre and 1,000 km a month burns about 56 litres, which is Rs 21,792 at today's rate. Every Rs 10 on the litre adds Rs 560 a month to that. A 70cc motorcycle at 45 km per litre and 800 km a month burns about 18 litres, so Rs 10 on the litre costs the rider Rs 180 a month.

Diesel is the number that reaches people who never buy fuel. It moves goods trucks, tractors, and the generators behind a lot of small manufacturing, so a diesel spike shows up in vegetable prices and freight rates within weeks. Put your own mileage and rate into the fuel cost calculator to see what a change does to your month.

What to watch next

Three things decide whether this gets better or worse for Pakistani prices: whether Naqvi's Tehran visit produces anything beyond a readout, whether the US responds to the conditions Qatar carried, and the next OGRA review on 30 September for rates effective 1 October. Nothing in the pump price changes before then unless the government moves it early.