Vessel traffic through Strait of Hormuz falls to five a day over weekend

The number of visible commodity vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz dropped to five per day over the weekend, shipping data showed on Monday, as companies tread cautiously amid continued attacks on ships.

The actual number of ships passing the strait could be higher as some vessels have switched off their automatic identification system to evade attacks.

Weekend traffic was limited to small-sized vessels, data from commodities firm Kpler showed. These included two liquefied petroleum gas carriers with one of them exiting the strait via the Iranian route while the other sailed out in the dark and is heading for India, the data showed.

On Friday, 14 vessels passed the strait including a very large crude carrier laden with 2 million barrels of Qatari oil that exited with its transponder switched off.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported on Sunday that a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile while transiting inbound through the Hormuz strait on Saturday.

That marked the third attack in the strait reported by the agency over the past week.

Tensions in the Gulf rose after U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers on Iran's Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the first known American strikes on the Gulf nation since late July.

-Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Chris Reese/Reuters