Iran grants Spanish vessels unrestricted access through Strait of Hormuz

Spain has joined the club of Iran’s “friendly nations” after Tehran granted Spanish vessels a permits-for-passage unfettered access to the Strait of Hormuz on March 24. The permission will drive a wedge between the Trump administration and its European allies deeper, as US President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” strategy is faltering.

Spain has joined the growing group of countries that are allowed to pass through the straits, on the condition they do not support the US-lead Operation Epic Fury. In addition, some vessels have paid a $2mn transit fee in either yuan or cryptocurrency as a toll road arrangement develops. Ships bound for the US or Israel are specifically excluded from using the Strait.

“Iran allows the Kingdom of Spain to use the Strait of Hormuz with complete freedom without restrictions or barriers that impede the maritime navigation of Spanish ships and tankers,” Tehran said in a statement.

The Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea accounts for a fifth of the world’s oil supply and so far only vessels bound for Asian markets have been permitted to pass, including Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and Bangadeshi. Spanish ships are the first European vessels that have been given permission to pass.

The majority of crude travelling through the strait is destined for Asia, primarily China. A Turkish-owned vessel also crossed with Iranian permission at the weekend, Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu confirmed.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi said on March 23 that the strait was “open but closed to our enemies”.

The assurance follows government-level talks between Madrid and Tehran. Spain has significant energy import needs, and the war comes at a time when Europe is facing a mushrooming energy crisis.

The permission is also clearly designed as a slap in the face for the Trump administration which has called on Nato allies to join his armada in the Gulf to force the Strait open by military means – a call the allies have all rejected. By allowing European ships to pass through the straits, Tehran hopes to drive the wedge between Europe and the US deeper over support for the war, say military analysts.

As bne IntelliNews reported, the number of ships traversing the Strait has increased in recent days, turning what was previously international waters used by everyone into a strategic passage that is fully controlled by Iran.

The route through the strait has changed with shipping avoiding the two international sea lanes in the middle of the strait, the traditional route, and sailing through the Larak-Qeshm channel much near Iran’s coastline that puts the vessels in easy range of Iran’s drones and missiles. According to reports the southern part of the narrow channel has now been mined by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces.

Eight vessels, not including ships flying the Iranian flag, passed through the critical waterway on March 23 according to the Automatic Identification System (AIS) systems data, maritime intelligence company Windward reports – nearly double the number in the preceding days. MarineTraffic, another ship tracking service, recorded nine transits on March 23 and March 22, compared with five over the previous two days, Al Jazeera reports.

Permanent change?

The open question remains if the new permits-for-passage is a permanent change that will alter the nature of Gulf energy exports and leave Iran as the gatekeeper for the entire region’s income. It appears that as part of Trump’s “energy dominance” foreign policy, he was hoping to take control of the strait as a way of throttling China’s oil supplies – one of the goals of the US decapitation of Venezuela’s government at the start of this year.

If that was the plan, it has badly backfired.

“The situation in the Strait of Hormuz will not return to the pre-war status,” the powerful Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned on March 24 via X, offering no further details.

The Kremlin is well aware of the high stakes Middle East war as Iran has been an important ally for Moscow The Kremlin complained that the US is pushing Russia, "out of all energy markets." "Our American colleagues say: let's settle Ukraine now and then we will have huge economic prospects. At the same time, we are being pushed out of all of the world's energy markets," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has talked to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on March 23.

According to Lavrov, the US has a "doctrine of dominance in world energy markets." "Lukoil and Rosneft have been sanctioned. These are the first major sanctions of the Donald Trump administration, not the Biden legacy," the minister added.

As bne IntelliNews reported, there is growing evidence that the CRINK alliance (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) is providing military support to Tehran to ensure that Iran is not defeated by the US. Similar to the US support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Moscow and Beijing are careful to not overtly arm the IRGC, but at the same time it appears the CRINK allies are providing key missile and drone technologies as well as access to their crucial satellite intelligence that the IRGC has used to devastating effect.

If the US is victorious in the Gulf then it will have a stranglehold over the entire region by controlling the flow of cash-earning hydrocarbons to the international market that will at the same time greatly weaken Russia’s position in the Middle East. If Iran retains control of the strait and maintains its permits-for-passage system, the reverse is true.