Western powers unable to secure shipping in the Red Sea, Hormuz 

LOS ANGELES/LONDON, Mar 25: The Western allies trying to negotiate a way to protect the Strait of Hormuz for energy shipping face a stark reality: a similar effort in the Red Sea that started years earlier cost billions of dollars and ultimately failed against Yemen's Houthis.

The costly Red Sea experience - four ships sunk, more than $1 billion in weapons expended, and a route that the shipping industry still largely avoids - looms over the more complex Strait of Hormuz, the shipping artery used by roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply and now blocked by Iran, a more formidable adversary than the Houthis.

Iran's threats to the strait and its attacks on energy infrastructure in nearby Gulf nations have sent oil prices soaring in the worst disruption to oil and gas supplies in history. Absent the strait's reopening, shortages will become more acute, threatening higher costs for energy, food and numerous other products worldwide.

"There is no substitute for the Strait of Hormuz," Kuwait Petroleum CEO Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah said in a fiery video call streamed to the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on Tuesday. "It is the world's strait, under international law and practical reality."

U.N. Security Council members on Tuesday were negotiating resolutions for protecting the strait, with some nations, such as Bahrain, taking a forceful stance that would authorize the use of "all necessary means" to protect the strait - which could mean the use of force.

Meanwhile, Iran has said "non-hostile vessels" can transit the Strait of Hormuz if they meet safety and security regulations in coordination with the relevant authorities, according to a statement released to the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

"Non-hostile vessels... may -- provided that they neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran -- and fully comply with the declared safety and security regulations -- benefit from safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the competent authorities," the statement said.

The IMO said Tuesday that the communique, dated Sunday, was issued by Iran's foreign ministry with the request that it be circulated by the IMO. The IMO had shared it with member states and NGOs, it added.

The statement stressed that "vessels equipment and any assets belonging to the aggressor parties -- namely the United States and the Israeli regime -- as well as other participants in the aggression do not qualify for innocent or non-hostile passage".    �"REUTERS, AFP