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Iran approves plan to charge ships for passage though Strait of Hormuz – but Malaysia says it’s not paying
Malaysia has said some of its ships have been allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz without having to pay a toll to Iran.
“We will not pay any toll as what may have been misunderstood by some netizens online. We’re not paying anything,” government spokesperson Fahmi Fadzil said.
It’s unclear if the country would be willing to pay a toll for using the waterway in future.
It comes after Iran’s parliament reportedly approved plans to create a toll for ships using the strait.
A security committee greenlit a new management plan for the waterway on Monday, which included introducing a toll system and banning any US-Israeli vessels from passing through, the Iranian Fars news agency reported.
There were several other measures, according to the report, including:
- The “sovereign role” of Iran and its armed forces in the strait;
- Cooperation with Oman;
- Banning any country imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran.
For context: The Strait of Hormuz, which normally sees around a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies pass through it, has effectively been closed off by Iran since the war began, leading to global supply issues and price rises.
Senior officials in the Gulf region have previously claimed Iran is already charging ships for safe transit through the waterway.
Some have reportedly paid millions of pounds to pass through, our US partner NBC News has reported.
NBC last week spoke to Tomer Raanan, a risk analyst at Lloyds List, a leading maritime intelligence service, who said: “Whatever we can detect going out of the strait right now, is going through this narrow channel in Iranian territorial waters where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps essentially verifies the ship’s information and acts almost like a toll booth.”
Tehran has repeatedly claimed the strait is open to ships not affiliated with the US or Israel, but traffic through it remains highly limited.
