Iraq’s state-owned Oil Tanker Company has moved about 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude through the Strait of Hormuz aboard a very large crude carrier, the firm’s director general said, a development reported on 5 October 2026.
The director general described the voyage as the company’s first operation of this kind in decades and framed it as a change in the firm’s operational practice, the report said. The move was presented as a deliberate resumption of large-scale seaborne carriage through the Hormuz route after a long period in which the company had not operated in that fashion.
The shipment comprised roughly 2 million barrels and was carried on a very large crude carrier, according to the director general’s remarks cited by the report. No vessel name, buyer detail or onward routing was supplied in the account available to this newspaper; those specifics were not included in the verified notes.
Operational milestone
Sources published the account on 5 October 2026 and noted the director general made his remarks on the preceding Saturday, the report said. That combination of reporting date and the company statement was the basis for the assertion that the movement represents the company’s first such operation in decades.
Details of the shipment
The company statement as reported made three clear factual points: the cargo volume was about 2 million barrels, the cargo travelled on a very large crude carrier and the passage was effected through the Strait of Hormuz. The published notes stop at those operational facts and do not attach further commercial or logistical detail.
The report emphasised the departure from the company’s previous pattern of operations but did not elaborate on whether this change reflects a one-off decision, a sustained shift in export practice or an adjustment to market or geopolitical conditions. The verified material for this article is limited to the elements outlined above and the attribution to the Oil Tanker Company’s director general as reported on 5 October 2026.
reports is cited here as the publisher of the original report; the verified notes supplied to The Maritime Gazette derive from that publication’s item of 5 October 2026. No additional independent documentation, vessel manifests or statements from other parties were provided in the factual notes used for this account.
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