A Bulk Carrier Was Hit by a Projectile in the Strait of Hormuz Hours Before Washington Said a Deal to Reopen It Was Close

A cargo ship was struck by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz overnight, leaving one seafarer missing and puncturing, for the second time in a week, the Trump administration's insistence that the world's most important oil chokepoint is on the verge of reopening.

The British-run United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center and the maritime security firm Ambrey reported that the vessel was hit at about 2 a.m. local time roughly 37 kilometers — 23 miles — northeast of Al Khasab, Oman. The ship has been identified in shipping industry reporting as the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Minoan Pioneer, hit at approximately 22:00 UTC on Aug. 3. The vessel sustained confirmed damage. No one claimed responsibility.

Hours later, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that a diplomatic breakthrough was imminent, saying "there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait." Secretary of State Marco Rubio was more guarded, saying progress had been made in talks between Iran and Oman but that there was "not finality yet." The arrangement under discussion would route inbound traffic through Iranian-controlled entry lanes and outbound traffic through Oman-controlled exit lanes — a structure that hinges on the United States lifting its port blockade on Iran, a concession the Trump administration has publicly rejected until now.

The competing accounts of the diplomacy are themselves part of the story. President Trump said talks between the United States and Iran were already underway; Iran has insisted it is negotiating only with Oman, and only about the strait. American officials have separately acknowledged that direct U.S.-Iran talks have not begun.

The same 24 hours brought a second maritime disaster. An Indian-flagged commercial vessel sank in the Red Sea after being rammed by an explosive-laden boat. Yemen's coast guard rescued 14 crew members — 13 Indians and one Yemeni. No group claimed the attack, but Iran-backed Houthi militants are suspected; the group has attacked shipping in the corridor repeatedly since the broader regional conflict escalated.

For the shipping industry, the pattern matters more than any single incident. The Hormuz crisis, which began Feb. 28, has now damaged at least 17 merchant ships, according to tallies of the conflict, and has forced owners, insurers and crews into an impossible calculus: a strait through which roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil normally moves, priced now at war-risk premiums, with no reliable alternative route out of the Persian Gulf. A United Nations agency suspended its own ship-evacuation initiative in June after one of the vessels involved was attacked.

Bessent has argued that reopening the strait would stabilize energy prices, which is the point of pressing for a deal on a timetable measured in days rather than months. But every projectile that lands on a hull between Al Khasab and the Gulf makes the same argument in reverse — that until someone can say with confidence who is firing and on whose orders, an agreement on paper will not be enough to persuade a master to take his ship through.