#russian-freighter

#russian-freighter

"With that corridor uncertain, itineraries have been cancelled and future plans are on hold."

Calculations made by Andromeda showed the 4kg of explosives recovered by Serbia's military security agency could not have seriously ruptured the pipe. Four kilograms is not sufficient to put the gas pipeline to a standstill.

Iran is demanding that oil tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz pay transit tolls in Bitcoin at a rate of $1 for every barrel of oil on board. A fully loaded supertanker carrying 2 million barrels would need to pay roughly $2 million in crypto before it can pass through.

Ust-Luga, a key oil-export outlet in Russia's west, stopped at the end of March as Ukraine stepped up attacks on energy infrastructure along the Baltic coast.

The Panama-flagged Peace Gulf, a medium-range tanker, is heading to Hamriyah port in the United Arab Emirates, typically moving Iranian naphtha to non-Iranian ports for export to Asia.

Three supertankers laden with oil have passed through the Strait of Hormuz amid the fragile truce between the United States and Iran, according to shipping data. Iran's blockade of the strait has disrupted global energy supplies and sent oil prices soaring since the start of the US and Israel's war on Iran.

The reopening of Hormuz is critical to the world's oil trade because its closure has resulted in the loss of millions of barrels of supply to global markets. A resumption would alleviate pressure on increasingly tight physical markets everywhere.

Special forces assisted by French helicopters boarded the ship in a clandestine operation in the North Sea on Saturday night, Belgium's defence minister, Theo Francken, said on Sunday. Prosecutors said the tanker, identified as the Ethera, was falsely flying the flag of Guinea and was believed to be on its way back to Russia when it was seized in Belgium's exclusive economic zone.