Iran's Supreme Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC says that "Iran is ready to increase the range of its weapons", adding that "The Strait of Hormuz is closed, but some people are smuggling oil in small vessels and transferring it to tankers"

Threats from IRGC-affiliated figures over the Strait of Hormuz are a recurring feature of Gulf tension cycles, and the established pattern is that rhetoric alone has rarely produced a sustained physical disruption: in past episodes of this kind, crude has priced a risk premium on the headline and then retraced when flows through the strait continued uninterrupted, with the premium only holding when tanker traffic, insurance rates or vessel tracking showed actual interference. The notable element here is the admission that oil is moving via small-vessel transfer to tankers, which fits the long-standing ship-to-ship and dark-fleet sanctions-evasion channel rather than a genuine closure, and suggests the claim of closure is posturing rather than a description of fact. The distinction that matters for crude pricing is between harassment and seizures, which have historically been temporary, and mining or sustained attacks on shipping, which would be a different regime entirely; the tell has typically been war-risk insurance premia and freight rates on Gulf loadings rather than official statements. Worth watching is whether other Iranian officials or state media echo the closure language, whether the US naval presence in the region responds, and whether tanker fixtures or AIS data show rerouting, since those are the channels through which rhetoric has historically become a supply story. As it stands this is a single advisor's statement, a category that has tended to fade without follow-through.