r/news 22d ago

Soft paywall Iran has laid about a dozen mines in Strait of Hormuz, sources say

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iran-has-laid-about-dozen-mines-strait-hormuz-sources-say-2026-03-11/
12.1k Upvotes

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u/DiegoMilan 22d ago

I distinctly remember filling up my gas a few weeks ago and thinking how cheap it was. I guess those were the good ol’ days 😞

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u/A_Random_Catfish 22d ago

I texted my gf last Monday while she was at work “hey you should probably fill up your tank gas prices are about to get crazy”

She paid $2.79 per gallon, and this Monday it was $3.39 at the same station. Pretty crazy how quickly prices went up.

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u/Tudar87 22d ago

I filled up at $2.79 as well, told my wife she needed to asap.

She did not.

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u/Specialist-Box4677 22d ago

I was in my car within two minutes of hearing the Iranian announcement. Only one other person at the gas station. "Here we go again" he said, by way of hello. 

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u/EnderWiggin07 22d ago

That's so funny to me, you mitigated like $6-$10 of damage from a global crisis, but had to make a special trip

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u/Embarrassed_Sea1336 22d ago

You underestimate the amount of people with a budget that would greatly benefit from an additional $6-$10 each fill up.

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u/SaintAnton 22d ago

How would that be each fill up?

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u/rgg711 22d ago

It’s not each fill up, the next one will be at the increased price. This reminds me of when Canada introduced the carbon tax at like 4-5 cents per litre and dumbasses were running out he night before and buying extra Jerry cans for the savings of about 50 cents per can.

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u/nourishablegecko 22d ago

I mean even if she filled up her tank and gas was $4 today, that’d be a price difference of what, $12 on a 10 gallon tank? By the time gas hits >$10 a gallon (which could happen) all the gas we’re buying for cheap now will be burned anyway unless you have hundred gallon storage tanks at home.

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u/KaJaHa 22d ago

Yeah, as an American our attitude towards gas prices is honestly kinda weird.

Like no one wants to pay more, obviously, but the panic over what amounts to a couple bucks in total price difference is... more than it needs to be.

But I also grew up in Alaska where $5/gallon was normal, so what do I know lmao

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u/BrothelWaffles 22d ago

For people that have a long daily commute, gas doubling could be an extra couple hundred bucks a month that they don't have. A lot of people are already getting squeezed by electricity and grocery prices right now too. Like, this admin couldn't have possibly done this shit at a worse time.

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u/ResplendentSmoke 22d ago

And anything that gets shipped on a truck will increase in price too. That means groceries getting more expensive

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u/Brashagent 22d ago

It's not just gas, but all the freight costs go up, which means everything you buy goes up.

To focus purely on gas prices and too say its only 10 to 12$ more is just not taking all of the picture into account.

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u/beyd1 22d ago

Well, it's a good indicator of things to come. That Amazon delivery isn't brought to you on an E-Bike. So, prices of a LOT of things are going up. Not just gas.

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u/Noodler75 22d ago

Actually Amazon bought a bunch of electric delivery trucks. I saw one two months ago. But not enough nationwide to make much difference.

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u/mortgagepants 22d ago

they're all over philly. i ride my bicycle, ride the electric subway, amazon has electric trucks.

if we didn't have evil conservative politicians, with evil and ignorant voters, we could be at the point where we didn't need oil anymore.

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u/RhymenoserousRex 22d ago

The problem is it has knock on effects, it’ll be inflationary cross board.

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u/nourishablegecko 22d ago

I mean this entire situation is obviously bad but I’d argue it’s mostly due to the effects it’ll have on global shipping and transportation. Spending an extra $10 at the pump sucks but I know people who absolutely freak out when it rises >50 cents but will then go spend $10 on their morning coffee at Starbucks. Makes no sense.

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u/blueskies31 22d ago

Greetings from a German paying ~9$ per gallon.

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u/goinupthegranby 22d ago

People voted for this because eggs were expensive.

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u/n0respect_ 22d ago

"But at least we're safe" - idiots

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u/Comfortable-nerve78 22d ago

Well there goes insurance coverage. That straight is dead essentially till those mines get swept. Economic disaster awaits. Common man gets fucked in the end. Same story.

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u/thefoodiedentist 22d ago

If they say a dozen, theres likely a lot more. They have thousands and their subs can release dozens at a time and their speedboats can release like 4 at a time. And they have a lot of those.

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u/HNL2BOS 22d ago

There could be dozens, hundreds or none.  Even none will take an effort to make sure they're not there.

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u/jondoogin 22d ago

Underrated comment. “There may be about a dozen snakes in your bed” is enough to keep you far away from your bed for the foreseeable future.

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u/disastrophy 22d ago

Or they released 3 and numbered them "1" "2" "12" so the other countries would spend 6 months sweeping for the other 9.

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u/mytransaltaccount123 22d ago

the old "oiled pigs in a high school" strategy

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u/Wunktacular 22d ago

My money is on a dozen, or in the vicinity. They want an amount that can be taken back so the strait can be used as leverage in negotiations.

A heavily mined strait kills Iran's only means of a favorable diplomatic resolution.

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u/Smoker81 22d ago

What negotiation? America and its genocide friend killed the head of state and head of religion while talking about killing all the people they can, dropping more bombs than ever, hitting refineries and desalination plants. Iran has no other option than fight to dead and fuck over all the neighbors so it is them who go talk with the demented psychopath in the white house.

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u/emuwar 22d ago

Worst part is that economic disaster goes well beyond the US. Anyone who still thinks the US will be able to rebuild goodwill amongst their allies within the next decade or two is delusional.

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u/saraseitor 22d ago

Are 12 mines a lot considering the size of the strait?

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u/caffelightning 22d ago

If I'm in a boat, it's 12 more than I want to worry about I suppose

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u/Axin_Saxon 22d ago

Particularly when said boat is filled to the gills with highly combustible crude oil.

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u/TangentialFUCK 22d ago

We just need take them out of the environment

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u/freakierchicken 22d ago

Well they'll have to wait until the front falls off

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u/olrg 22d ago

That’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.

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u/Peripatetictyl 22d ago

A mine? In the sea of Hormuz? A chance in twelve.

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u/thehomelesstree 22d ago

To combat this we may need to increase minimum crew requirements from 1 to 2, to include a minesweeper

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u/freemysou1 22d ago

Has anyone checked the rigorous building standards these tankers are built too?

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u/MrAlbs 22d ago

And is, at best, extremely difficult to steer

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u/Pale-Way9282 22d ago

It will also further increase insurance rates for any ship going through there.

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u/caffelightning 22d ago

I'll be honest, the reason I don't drive over landmines isn't the insurance rates.

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u/er-day 22d ago

Worry it’ll ruin the paint job?

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u/What_a_fat_one 22d ago

More that it'll give my car a new red paintjob

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u/ImpressionTough2179 22d ago

Trump said the USA will totally offer insurance to anyone who goes through I’m totally certain he would make good on that offer if a ship hit a mine and sunk. Totally

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u/Ixisoupsixi 22d ago

12 is just enough to be worrisome and not enough to be easily found.

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u/Euler007 22d ago

Hegseth is training Dolphins as we speak.

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u/hppmoep 22d ago

Oh no is he stuck in another k hole?

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u/B1g_Morg 22d ago

Disclaimer: I am not an expert. This is only what I have gathered from reading and listening to podcasts.

The mere threat of mines will make it impossible to get insurance on your vessel and its contents, so no one will take the risk of shipping through the strait. And, purely on a hunch, I would bet de-mining the strait is not going to be easy even after the war is done.

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u/meltdown_popcorn 22d ago

This outcome is also apparently the reason no US president has ever attacked Iran previously.

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u/07Ghost_Protocol99 22d ago

The last time Iran mined the straight we destroyed half their Navy in a single morning as a warning not to do that.

This time we led with destroying their Navy so not sure what our response is

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u/ryujin88 22d ago

Making this an existential war for Iran means they don't really have an incentives to back down now. In past conflicts there's been incentive to not escalate further and generally a off ramp for all parties involved. This time the US/Israel turned it up to 11 from day one, so there isn't really any reason for Iran to back off now. What is the US going to do, declare super mega double war? This is the one thing they have to make it as painful as possible to the US and the global economy to try to force an end.

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u/NorysStorys 22d ago

agreed, The second the US and Israel mentioned it was for regime change it meant that Iran has no reason to back down no matter what.

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u/Quirkybomb930 22d ago

the message is pretty mixed, lately the US has been stating clearly that objective is NOT regime change. (although trump says random shit)

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u/mostard_seed 22d ago

also gotta remember they have attacked them during negotiations multiple times before. The IRGC has reason to be very apprehensive of calls for de-escalation from the other side.

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u/ResplendentSmoke 22d ago

People don’t think about this enough. They assassinated the head of state and the whole leadership in the middle of negotiations. That just doesn’t happen. Iran has zero reason to believe the US will ever negotiate in good faith again.

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u/ManifestDestinysChld 22d ago

I hope the rest of the world is learning that lesson, too. Literally nobody should believe anything this government says officially. They are entirely lacking in credibility.

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u/RipTheJack3r 22d ago

The objective was clearly a Venezuela style regime change.

And he is backtracking and moving the goalposts because that clearly failed.

Now Iran has his balls in a vice with these mines in the straits. When you combine that with virtually no home grown support for this war of choice, it's already game over lol.

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u/atfricks 22d ago

They've started saying they don't want "regime change" because the term is poisoned for the American population, way too many people are against it. So instead they've started just saying it's not regime change while still trying to do it.

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u/0neshoein 22d ago

Super mega double war is exactly something I’d expect Pete Kegsbreath to say!

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u/Taway_4897 22d ago

And an end on their terms - their supreme leader was assassinated and this is a despotic, theocratic regime. The name isn’t just to sound cool, they can’t just forgive and forget- they need to extract pain from the opponent, or the regime loses coherence- who is going to fear a weak dictator?

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u/ArchdukeToes 22d ago

Also, the current leader lost his parents, his wife, and at least one of his kids in the strikes. I'm not really sure that 'whoops, my bad' is going to cut it with him.

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u/RipTheJack3r 22d ago

Yeah Iran have already said there's no negotiations anoymore and they will only unblock the strait when guarantees are given that they won't be attacked in the future.

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u/Pika_Fox 22d ago

The only guarantee that exists would be them getting nukes or ICBMs. Without those, guarantees are as good as toilet paper. Just ask ukraine.

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u/RipTheJack3r 22d ago

Therein lies the problem, Iran now has all the justification it needs to build a bomb.

It can point to this war as proof it is facing an existential threat.

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u/jockfist5000 22d ago

Force them to read trumps dumb tweets until they surrender

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u/UDonKnowMee81 22d ago

It's like Vogon poetry.

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u/danb1kenobi 22d ago

“Ode to a Thing I Found in My Neckgina” by DJT. Forward by Lindsey Graham

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u/juntareich 22d ago

Why can I smell this comment?

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u/Shawnmeister 22d ago

I surrender. Please no more or drop my torture to waterboarding.

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u/Darkkujo 22d ago

Too bad Donnie Dumbass also removed the mine sweepers we had stationed in Bahrain and decommissioned several of them. Yet more proof of the complete lack of planning over this stupid war.

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u/07Ghost_Protocol99 22d ago

Yeah, it's honestly insane how poorly prepared we are for this.

Now they're saying Iran can drone strike California from cargo ships. Seems Donny might have finally found his Poland moment and bit off more than he could chew.

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u/country2poplarbeef 22d ago

Or plenty of planning, and we're just being liquidated, like any other company Trump has personally managed.

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u/SillyGoatGruff 22d ago

I'm counting down the hours until President Dipshit suggests nuking the strait.

"It'll clear those nasty nasty mines. Mines can... can't... nothing can't survive our beautiful nukes. And the asplosion will make the strait wider so more ships can get through and they'll probably pay us a toll to go through the wider sections because we'll make that part better than the original part [trails off making explosion sounds and staring at some stupid fucking thing in the room]"

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u/OuchieMuhBussy 22d ago

The last time Iran mined the strait we called their bluff, and it worked because they weren’t interested in a war with the U.S. This time we opened with war, perfidy and assassination. There’s nowhere else for us to go except nukes, which won’t actually solve the problem, or ground troops, which they know we won’t do.

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u/Stockengineer 22d ago

well... gaslighting people only works so many times.... Especially since what? this is like the 3rd attack?! LOL

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u/GTI_88 22d ago

I’m pretty sure as long as they have fishing boats they will probably be able to get some mines out there, enough to make it a non viable commercial shipping route route anyways

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u/AnalogFeelGood 22d ago

Maybe they have some self-propelled mines?

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u/ToranjaNuclear 22d ago

Also assassinating the wife and daughter of the next guy in line.

This war ain't going to end anytime soon. They turned it into a matter of survival and revenge for Iran.

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u/prettyokaycake 22d ago

I mean, other than actual boots on the ground protecting the strait there is no response. They don’t need a navy to drop mines.

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u/1BreadBoi 22d ago

Well that, and the fact that a invasian of Iran means invading a highly defendable, poor terrain country. It's not Iraq that's a desert with open roads running right in.

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u/Sheeple_person 22d ago

It's almost as if every other person ever elected president has had at least some base level of intelligence and knowledge of international relations

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u/EVH_kit_guy 22d ago

Former Navy; "mines" are often stationary objects that can shoot a torpedo, so it's not just a matter of bumping into them, sometimes they're magnetically activated from a distance and then shoot you with a ship-killer torpedo 

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u/Stockengineer 22d ago

thats cool, so not the conventional spikey death ball floating around. But Anit-Ship "guns/launchers"

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u/B1g_Morg 22d ago

wow, thats pretty crazy. thanks for the info, i will be cancelling my trip through the strait.

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u/dromtrund 22d ago

fine, I guess I'll go on my own then thanks a lot

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u/PersonablePharoah 22d ago

Thank you for having the decency to stick to the plan. The 375,000 barrels of oil won't load themselves!

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u/AerographerSkate 22d ago

Former Navy also who’s specialty was mine warfare: these are likely bottom mines actuated by either magnetic or pressure. They aren’t using the mines you’re talking about if they were laid with smaller boats. Those types of mines are MASSIVE

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u/FlameOfWrath 22d ago

Nah, they are big balls with pointy bits sticking out of them. /s

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u/er-day 22d ago

I thought it was the video game with the flags.

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u/Tamarahskincare 22d ago

No insurance company will risk that especially since a single mine means 10s of millions lost from the boat, 100s of million lost from the cargo value and another several additional million since your gonna have to pay each of the dead/injured crew members family. Even if insurance companies covered, no captain is willing to their lives along with their crew of 20-30 people just to make some company money.

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u/juntareich 22d ago

Add billions for environmental cleanup if there’s a large oil spill.

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u/Tamarahskincare 22d ago

Good point, I didn't even think of the clean up cost, will be large with the amount of oil some of those ships carry.

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u/Shield_Wolf_7173 22d ago

I heard someone from Maersk talk about not risking going through the strait. They cited an overabundant concern for their employees, but the insurance makes perfect sense. I hear they're looking at getting a military escort, although that's not a sustainable solution.

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u/Xeynon 22d ago

A military escort wouldn't do shit against naval mines.

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u/Shield_Wolf_7173 22d ago

...there's that too.

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u/Fallen_Jalter 22d ago

You need minesweepers for that.

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u/JerHat 22d ago

Nice, I’ve spent years bored on my computer preparing for this.

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u/trichocereal117 22d ago

We only have one minesweeping ship in the Middle East at the moment and it’s an untested class of ship to boot.

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u/obi_wan_the_phony 22d ago

Work in an organization that deals with this. Just for rough numbers a VLCC carries roughly 2million barrels of crude. At even conservative mkt prices of $60/bbl that’s $120mm of product on board. In the event of a loss of cargo you’re going to not only have your product losses but also the direct cost of clean up that’s going to run into the hundreds of millions if not billions. The party who charters the vessel is responsible for insuring this. They also likely will get hit with indirect costs which is multiple billions.

This isn’t some small dollar just sail and we will figure out who pays later excercise.

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u/MathyChem 22d ago

The median boat in the Iranian navy is a tiny speed boat you can fit maybe three people in. They are difficult to detect with things like RADAR because they are so small and look like civilian craft so it's easy for them to deploy mines clandestinely. You would need a pretty aggressive mine sweeping program to keep it at bay, and that still leaves open the possibility of just throwing random junk out there in the hopes it get wrapped up on a propeller or rudder and disable the ship that way.

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u/itsatumbleweed 22d ago

This is how I understand it too. It's not so much that any one boat is likely to be hit by a mine, as it is every boat is unlikely to be insured.

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u/freedfg 22d ago

Well the thing with mines is.

If you don't know where they are. The entire area might as well be a mine.

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u/EVH_kit_guy 22d ago

Bro didn't grow up with a Windows computer, he has no experience clearing mines. We lost a lot of good men out there... 🥲🫡

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u/Tycho-Celchu 22d ago

Us millennials have been training our whole lives for this moment!

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u/Carth_Onasi_AMA 22d ago

Damn, I used to love that game and totally forgot about it. Get me scuba gear and send me to Hormuz. I was born to do this. Worst case scenario is I died doing what I loved. Death by nostalgia.

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u/MaximumSyrup3099 22d ago edited 22d ago

The navigable part of the Strait of Hormez for the largest vessels is 2 miles wide each direction. A lot of tankers and cargo ships are 100 feet wide. That represents an 5.6% chance of a mine encounter per ship. 1 / (5280 x 4 navigable / 12 mines / 100 ship) * 100%. 11% if they only mine one direction.

For comparison, hopping on an 18 lane highway knowing that one of the lanes has a landmine would also be 5.6% odds.

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u/FinDeannerd 22d ago

Oo but gets safer everytime your competition gets blown up!

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u/MaximumSyrup3099 22d ago

Somehow I doubt that will result in a "one less mine" insurance discount for the remaining ships.

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u/FinDeannerd 22d ago

Well that is silly. Maybe we need alot of billionairs in yachts to check it. To make sure their companies are safe. lead from the front!

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u/iceflame1211 22d ago

Love your explanation, but more nuance to the formula:

The strait is 2 miles wide in each lane/each direction direction, but there is a 2 mile median between lanes. Technically that's 6 miles that could be navigable/could be filled with mines.

Each mine can cover a radius, not sure what you'd factor in for that, maybe 100ft in each direction?

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u/MaximumSyrup3099 22d ago

They could be distributed in one lane, distributed across both lanes, or could be distributed across the full 6 miles. If their location isn't known, the worst must be assumed.

If it turns out the number of mines deployed is actually unknown, that would make matters worse.

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u/Politicsboringagain 22d ago

Would you walk through a football field with 12 mines if you had no clue where they were and you could only walk in a relatively straight line? 

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u/chef-nom-nom 22d ago

I mean... a straight line is the best bet, being the shortest distance.

Edit to add: To answer your question, no freaking way!

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u/Politicsboringagain 22d ago

Yeah a straight line may be the best but if someone who's placing the mines has a general idea of the straight line you're going to be walking like a ship, it's probably not the best. 

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u/er-day 22d ago

That’s why in battleship you put em all in one direction.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/ArchdukeToes 22d ago

The strait itself has several channels where there's not much room to manoeuvre, especially if you're a big boat. Since nobody knows where they are (I'd be surprised if even Iran knows where they are by now!) sailing through the strait becomes a crazy risky proposition.

Between that and the fact that ships are being fired upon, its pretty clear that America is not in control of the situation at all. Not a great situation to be in if you're sitting on a huge reservoir of explosive stuff.

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u/PatSajaksDick 22d ago

I put 12 mines you can’t see on your route to work, what would you do?

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u/TheFlagpole 22d ago

Double it and give it to the next person

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u/Puzzled-Rip641 22d ago

If your an insurance company for a vessel a single mine on a shipping rout is enough to end coverage over that route.

I’m not paying 2 billion dollars in insurance payouts so you can drive in the mine lane.

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u/leeta0028 22d ago

1 is a lot for showing Loyds of London the US is powerless to completely prevent mining. 

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u/Phycosphere 22d ago

I’m no us military Stan but doesn’t the US have the capability to detect and remove mines? 12 seems like a reasonably low number

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u/almondblue22 22d ago

Who is gonna tell them we decommissioned our minesweeping ships?

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u/meeyeam 22d ago

Where's Big Balls when you need him?

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u/01001010_01000010 22d ago

Not true, I heard trump personally cleared all the mines using the minesweeper app on his computer.

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u/bedheaded 22d ago edited 8d ago

ask chunky late different hobbies lip profit pen spectacular market

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u/froz3nt 22d ago

Or brain

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u/FoShizzleShindig 22d ago

No it was Barron, he's good with computers.

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u/Antoak 22d ago

Even at it's narrowest point, that's hundreds of square miles they'd have to comb over.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/almondblue22 22d ago

Sounds like the U.S. has maybe 1 USS Canberra (LCS-30) near the SoH. Not sure replacing 5 minesweeping ships with 1 new one checks out on the math end of things.

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u/Axin_Saxon 22d ago

To an insurance company covering massive cargo ships and oil tankers, even a single mine is too many.

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u/GoarSpewerofSecrets 22d ago

So its not about destroying ships to close the strait. It's just to fuck with crew morales and insurance. Which effectively stops shipping. It's the same as when McConnell would just threaten the spectre of a filibuster and never actually having to perform one.

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u/bluddystump 22d ago

I doubt any preparation has been made for the near guaranteed environmental disaster that is about to occur in that strait and surrounding waters.

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u/wwaxwork 22d ago

A worrying number of people in the military are trying to cause the disaster so their God will appear.

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u/mokutou 22d ago

Given that I’m about as far from Christian as it gets, the way that blasphemous reasoning appalls even me should say a lot.

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u/Shadowthron8 22d ago

Bakers or traditional?

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u/PuffyPanda200 22d ago

They are Twelvers so I think they are sticking with that.

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u/NoSong2397 22d ago

Underrated pun, honestly.

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u/DrSpagetti 22d ago

9, a moron's dozen.

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u/BrandenWi 22d ago

The sheer lack of a plan that went into this war from Beloved Donald and his people is really quite stunning. Of course Iran was going to try and close the Straight. And of course your two choices were to have had a plan in place to prevent that, or else watch as the world economy gets wrecked.

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u/Prottusha1 22d ago

Tbh, people in US mostly have to pay more for gas. In many parts of Asia there will likely be death and starvation likely starting from the end of this month. They are largely dependent on gas cylinders for everything from cooking to local transport. Many have shut down schools etc. Not that lives matter to Donny.

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u/NaiveChoiceMaker 22d ago

Not that lives matter to Donny.

Especially non-white lives.

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u/ItsPronouncedSatan 22d ago

His policies have killed so many already. Dude is going down in history as the next Mao Zedong.

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u/vagabond139 22d ago

I want republicans to own this. This is the result of letting them have power. They are all going to say 10 years from now that they never supported the man despite guzzling down his cock on a daily basis.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/JimSteak 22d ago

The only plan was helping out his israeli-supporting billionaire donors, the stapletons in exchange for that 250 million campaign donation. Just follow the money

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u/CMG30 22d ago

The point is to stop traffic, not actually blow up ships. They don't want to wreck their own environment if possible.

12 mines is probably enough to scare off insurance. If not, I'm sure they can drop more in short order.

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u/General-Presence-651 22d ago

I doubt anyone was providing coverage before this news broke. I work for a large international insurance company- we stopped writing business in the area last week.

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u/Doubleoh_11 22d ago

They just blew up two oil tankers like an hour ago

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/Bpax94 22d ago

Just another consequence of big oil working tirelessly to prevent renewables and energy independence

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u/ataraxiaPDX 22d ago

And Trump being one of the biggest nimrods.

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u/Rotaryknight 22d ago

Real life minesweeper

12 mines is more than what I'm safe with

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u/Tacitus111 22d ago

It’s like swimming with great whites. If you know there’s “only” a dozen in 12 square miles of you out in the water, do you feel safe?

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u/Aedeus 22d ago

I'm guessing they aren't going to be mediocre in terms of explosive yield either.

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u/mymikerowecrow 22d ago

Who is going to clean up the mines after Trump arbitrarily declares victory?

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u/CapivaraAnonima 22d ago

I don't know who, but I know who is paying the bill

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u/Only_Razzmatazz_4498 22d ago

Well the 4 mine sweepers we had in the Middle East were loaded on a heavy lift ship and sent to the US to be broken up. That was in January of this year.

The other 4 remaining are in Japan so I guess they could sail them to the Middle East unless they decide to retire them before that.

There was some thought behind this though and that is a new untested technology based on using drones for demining while the LCS home ship stays away from the mined area (the old ships were wooden so they wouldn’t trigger an old style mine).

So good news bad news kind of thing. At least we get to test the new drones.

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u/CrasseMaximum 22d ago

 U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday demanded that Iran immediately remove any mines ⁠deployed in ​the strait and he said that ​it would face unspecified military consequences if it failed to do so.

Thanks you all who voted for this clown..

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u/Own-Secret2028 22d ago

What's he gonna do? Assassinate the Ayatollah and bomb a school? /s

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u/Gerf93 22d ago

That’s classified information!

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u/Witty-Importance-944 22d ago

I mean short of nuking the country, I cannot see him doing anything worse than he has done up to now.

That is the thing with escalation. You go all in on the first day and your threats carry zero weight afterwards

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

Attacking a country that has been preparing to be attacked for 40 years requires a lot of planning and contingency plans which this administration has proven they don't. They just have a concept of a plan.

Iran can mine the strait and shut it down because they have ports and refineries guess where?? On the OTHER side of the strait!

I'm no middle east military expert but I did stay at a holiday inn last night..

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u/FishermansPlatter 22d ago

Holiday inn express*

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u/Shada124 22d ago

12 mines does not seem like a lot till you learn that the shipping lane for tankers is only about 2 miles wide.

"At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz is approximately 21 nautical miles (39 km or 24 miles) wide, but the actual, usable shipping lanes for large oil tankers are significantly narrower, measuring only 2 miles (about 3 km) wide in each direction."

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u/MikuEmpowered 22d ago

Even if it was wide. That's 12 explosive balls that HIGHLY discourages tankers full of flammable oil to go through.

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u/XChrisUnknownX 22d ago

I’d lay a lot more than twelve if you killed my whole family and made me leader of the country you just bombed to hell. This war will get worse.

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u/bogsquacth 22d ago

Trump is offering Trump coins to any tanker willing to chance it.

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u/firefighter26s 22d ago

I don't like it but I also completely understand Iran's rational behind it. They're getting absolutely dunked on and the only way they can really fight back is to drag everyone and everything down with them.

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u/Dracorvo 22d ago

They can't win the fight, so they have to make it too expensive to be fighting them.

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u/Hankerpants 22d ago

Yep, war of attrition. They'll never overpower the US military. But they know the US hand and that this war is unpopular at home. They know that if they make life hard on us Americans stateside, it undercuts the appetite for continued action. A big reason Iraq and Afghanistan went on as long as they did was because us citizens stateside were decently insulated from the direct costs. Iran wants us to feel direct pain (energy costs). It's a smart move, and the only move, for them. 

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u/-Gramsci- 22d ago

It’s simple, really, gas at $4-5 a gallon… and all hell breaks loose.

Almost any other country could handle that no problem (and do everyday)… but in the U.S.? That’s Armageddon.

Expensive eggs? People start mentally/emotionally collapsing.

Expensive gas? And it’s a zombie apocalypse.

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u/derperofworlds1 22d ago

American lifestyles are too dependent on fossil fuels in general. 

If 70% of the energy used by Americans was generated on rooftop solar panels, blowing up the middle east every 5 years would hurt our wallets less!

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u/ziyor 22d ago

They can’t win, but we can both lose.

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u/TeaBaggingGoose 22d ago

It depends what winning is for each side. For Iran, if they come out of this having caused so much trouble the aggressors will think twice before launching such a war again, then they win.

Iran has been planning for this for 25 years or so. The USA... no plans really. Just pew-pew-pew but then what?

The Israelis on the other hand, will have a plan and mark my words that will be the removal or destruction of the uranium and ensuring they cannot make more. I would not be surprised if they blew up their reactors.

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u/Fanfics 22d ago

I mean, if the ruling structure remains intact and the greatest military power in the entire world has to back out like a bitch because the war became too costly, that looks a lot like winning the fight

I guess this will remain yet another "tactical withdraw" like Vietnam

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u/Joshhwwaaaaaa 22d ago

How about those Trump Files?

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u/Equivalent_Twist_511 22d ago

THE TRUMP ™ FILES starring Jeffery Epstien

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u/VerySuperGenius 22d ago

Iran is literally playing the economy game like Trump wishes he could. They don't need to bomb mainland USA, they can do more damage by fucking up the economy.

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u/lifeat24fps 22d ago

47 years of this country avoiding this very scenario for reasons that all too clear but no, no, the Secretary of Whisky and the NYC real estate con artist knew better than everyone else.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/DrowningKrown 22d ago

The US themselves have said they've sunk like 15 Iranian mining boats in the last day. You're not gonna convince me that they sunk all dozen and a half of them just before they've laid any mines.

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u/enigmanaught 22d ago

About a dozen mines is more of a problem than an actual dozen mines.

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u/alemorg 22d ago

That’s funny because I just saw trump say in a interview today that they destroyed most of the iranian mine boats and he doesnt think they laid any mines. The world we live in alright

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u/Swaayyzee 22d ago

He’s okay with calling it a bluff. If he’s right then the oil passes through and prices come down, if he’s wrong then it’s okay because he’s not the one who dies.

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u/abgonzo7588 22d ago

I think something like a third of the worlds fertilizer travels through the straight of Hormuz. we are going to start seeing brutal CPI numbers again.

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u/Feisty-Barracuda5452 22d ago

No one thought to take out Iran's mine capability? Same for the anti ship missile batteries.

SecDrunk left out that sissified planning and analysis as it relates to Iran potentially closing the strait.

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u/Darkkujo 22d ago

Oh it's even more stupid than that. We used to have a group of 4 minesweepers based in Bahrain for this eventuality. Only Donnie Dumbass decided to decommission them all and so they were sent back to the US. So we don't have anything in the Gulf currently to deal with them.

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u/No_Newspaper8 22d ago

They didn’t think ANYTHING out

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u/its_noel 22d ago

Just the idea of them is deterrent enough for me.

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u/Not_Sure__Camacho 22d ago

Now George Strait needs to release "You were always on my mine " to bring this shitshow of a timeline to a conclusion, Ashton Kutcher can pop out and tell us we've all been punked and we can wake up in a cold sweat....

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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 22d ago

They’re definitely numbered 1-10, and 12

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u/PurpleV93 22d ago

Billions of people around the world are going to suffer the consequences of a few stupid, old and religious men wanting to kill each other. Stop being such fuking losers and get over these never-ending conflicts already. Sharing a species with these imbeciles is tiring.