A tanker is struck by an unknown projectile off the Saudi Gulf port of Jubail and its crew is evacuated, as Iran claims a supertanker hit a mine in Hormuz

Two tanker stories reached the wires on Saturday, and only one of them can be checked.

The checkable one happened on Friday off Jubail, the Saudi industrial port on the Gulf coast. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile 68 nautical miles northeast of the port, in a report it described as time late. All crew are reported safe and were evacuated, and there was no reported environmental impact at the time of the report. Vessels were advised to transit with caution and report suspicious activity. The maritime security firm Vanguard identified the ship as the Safeen Principal, a Marshall Islands flagged crude oil tanker, and said it lost power and suffered a fire in its engine room.

The uncheckable one came from Tehran. Irans Revolutionary Guard said an illegal supertanker carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil struck a sea mine while passing through what it called an unauthorised route in the Strait of Hormuz, with its tracking systems switched off, and that the ship exploded and caught fire. The state linked agency ISNA carried the claim. No independent source had confirmed a burning supertanker in the strait as of October 17, and the two incidents should not be merged: the UKMTO report places its tanker off Jubail, on the Gulf side and far from the strait, and names a projectile, not a mine.

What is established is the water these ships are sailing in. UKMTOs weekly review counts 135 incidents in and around Hormuz during the American and Iranian conflict, and traffic through the strait remains about 70 percent below its level before the war, as of October 17. About a fifth of the worlds oil exports passed through Hormuz before the war began with American and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. Ships have come under Iranian fire regularly since, Saudi Arabia has been attacked from Yemen at the other end of the peninsula, and on Friday a missile was aimed at Yanbu, the Red Sea port built to bypass Hormuz altogether. A projectile off Jubail says the Gulf coast itself is inside the same geography now, which is the part of Saturdays news that does not depend on whose claim a reader believes.