In 60 seconds: Iran says it has handed Washington a seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz through Qatari mediators — even as a second supertanker caught fire Saturday after striking a naval mine and Brent crude touched $110 a barrel. U.S. Central Command insists 97% of ships are crossing safely and the strait "remains open for business." This is a developing story — updates to follow.
- Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran has shared a seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz with the U.S. via Qatar — "the choice now rests with" Washington.
- On Saturday, the IRGC Navy said a second "offending supertanker" carrying 2M+ barrels struck a naval mine and was "engulfed in a massive blaze"; a third tanker was reported on fire in the Sea of Oman.
- The UK maritime agency logged a new tactic: a tanker struck by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a small boat.
- CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper says the U.S. has blocked $25B+ of Iranian crude exports and frozen ~$350M in crypto, while ~400 vessels transited the strait in seven days.
- Brent crude touched $110 a barrel on Friday — its first visit to that level since May — and WTI finished the week up more than 10%.
Diplomacy and arson are rarely scheduled for the same weekend, but the Strait of Hormuz is doing both at once. While Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was telling the world Tehran has a seven-day plan to reopen the world's most important oil chokepoint, a second supertanker was burning on the water — and oil traders were watching Brent crude punch through $110 a barrel for the first time since May.
Read our earlier coverage: "12 Ships Hit in 7 Days, One Sunk: the Strait of Hormuz Is Sliding Toward Open Conflict."
What happened
Two things happened almost simultaneously on Saturday, and they point in opposite directions. First, the escalation: Iran's IRGC Navy announced that a second "offending supertanker" — described as carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude — had struck a naval mine and was "engulfed in a massive blaze." The IRGC posted video of a burning vessel. Separately, Iran's navy reported another oil tanker on fire in the Sea of Oman. And the UK's maritime trade agency logged a genuinely new tactic in this campaign: a tanker struck by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a small boat — close-range, deniable, and cheap.
Then, the diplomacy: Araghchi said Iran has shared a seven-day plan to reopen the strait with the United States through Qatar, adding that "the choice now rests with" Washington. It's the first de-escalation signal from Tehran since the attacks began — delivered, with remarkable timing, while its own navy was claiming credit for setting ships on fire.
Latest verified facts
The numbers both sides are now putting on the table tell you how seriously each is taking this fight. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said Saturday that U.S. forces have blocked more than $25 billion of Iranian crude exports in recent months and frozen roughly $350 million in crypto assets tied to Tehran. His headline claim: Iran now has "no exports and no imports by sea" apart from humanitarian aid. On the transit question, Cooper said around 400 merchant vessels crossed the strait in the last seven days, and that the U.S. helped Gulf partners move more than 100 million barrels in that span. The U.S. military separately claims 97% of vessels seeking to transit are passing safely.
But the counter-numbers are ugly. The UK maritime agency says transits are still running about 70% below pre-conflict levels. The data firm Kpler puts crude exports through the strait at 9.4 million barrels a day — roughly 70% of the pre-war average. And the market has voted with its wallet: Brent touched $110 on Friday, WTI closed out a week of gains above 10%, and every tanker insurer on earth is repricing risk in real time.
The conflict is also spilling past the strait. A Saudi-led coalition intercepted two ballistic missiles and several drones aimed at Khamis Mushait and Riyadh over the weekend, plus two more drones near Riyadh and the Eastern Province. Egypt's president el-Sisi pledged "any measure" to defend Saudi Arabia, and Egypt's parliament called an emergency session for Sunday.
Why it matters
Here's the thing about Araghchi's seven-day plan: it only exists because the arson is working. Iran is burning tankers to prove it can close the strait, then offering to reopen it as a bargaining chip — a protection racket dressed up as diplomacy. The question Washington has to answer is whether the plan is a genuine off-ramp or just a pause button Iran can release the moment talks stall.
And the $110 oil price is the part that reaches past geopolitics into your life. The strait carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil. At 70% below normal flows, every American driver, every airline, every heating bill is one bad week away from feeling this. That's why Cooper's "97% cross safely" and the UK agency's "70% below normal" can both be true at once — and why the gap between them is the most dangerous number in this story.
Impact on the USA and the world
For the United States, this is now a two-front energy squeeze: the Hormuz campaign is pushing crude toward $110 while the administration is simultaneously waiving Russia sanctions to keep diesel flowing — two policies pulling in opposite directions. For Gulf allies, the Houthi and Iranian missile/drone campaign against Saudi Arabia is turning a shipping crisis into a homeland-defense crisis. For the global economy, another week like this one starts showing up in inflation data, not just trading screens.
What happens next
Everything now hinges on Washington's answer to the seven-day plan. Does Trump take the meeting, or does he read the burning supertanker as proof the offer is made in bad faith? Watch three things: the White House response (or silence) in the next 48 hours, the UKMTO daily incident log for whether attacks pause or accelerate, and Monday's oil open — traders will price the diplomacy against the fires in real time.
The other thing to watch is the RPG-from-a-small-boat tactic. Mines are deniable; speedboat RPG attacks are a step toward open harassment of crews, and the first crew casualty would change the politics of this crisis overnight — in Washington, in London, and in every capital that buys Gulf crude.
Our take: Don't mistake the seven-day plan for a peace offering. It's leverage — Iran demonstrating, in the most literal way possible, that the strait only flows when Tehran allows it. The smart play for Washington is to test the offer without loosening the pressure that produced it: take the meeting, keep the warships in place, and judge Tehran by the UKMTO log, not the press releases. If the fires stop, the plan was real. If they don't, it was never a plan at all — it was a ransom note.