Iran has warned of legal action against Sinokoo Marine (Sinokoo Group), a South Korean shipping company known for transporting the largest amount of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz recently.

The Persian Gulf Security Authority (PGSA), established by Iran to manage navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on the 27th (local time) that "vessels belonging to Sinokoo have violated navigation regulations the most over the past three months, and corresponding crackdown measures have been taken against at least seven ships so far," adding, "We warn all cargo owners, stakeholders, and insurers.

Legal action will be taken against all vessels belonging to this company starting November 1."

However, the PGSA did not specify what concrete measures would be taken.

The PGSA has previously published lists of ships it claims violated Iran-imposed strait passage regulations, stating that these vessels will face restrictive measures including fines, detention, or confiscation when passing through the strait in the future.

Following its initial announcement of 45 sanctioned vessels on August 24, it placed 77 ships on the list last month, and a total of 122 ships this month.

Vessels belonging to Sinokoo Marine have been included on the list since the first announcement in August.

According to a recent report by Bloomberg analyzing vessel-tracking data from shipping analytics firms Vortexa, Equasis, and Signal Ocean, crude oil tankers owned by Sinokoo transported 105.6 million barrels of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz last month.

This accounts for 37 percent of the approximately 286.3 million barrels of total crude oil that passed through the Strait of Hormuz last month.

This volume exceeded the combined total (97.3 million barrels) of the second to fourth-ranked companies: Saudi Arabia's National Shipping Company (Bahri), Kuwait Oil Tanker Company, and the shipping arm of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

Lloyd's List, a British maritime specialized media outlet, also reported that based on the number of Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) transits last month, Sinokoo accounted for 47 percent of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and its share increased to over 50 percent from the beginning of this month through the 10th.

Lloyd's List added that during this process, seven oil tankers owned by Sinokoo suffered damage from missile or drone attacks.

Sinokoo secured a large fleet of oil tankers through second-hand ship purchases and time-charter contracts right before the war involving Iran, and is known to primarily deploy its tankers for short-haul "shuttle" operations—loading crude oil inside the Persian Gulf, passing through the strait, and unloading it at ship-to-ship transfer points in the Gulf of Oman.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)