OilPrice warns undersea cable risk
- Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, published a map warning that Strait of Hormuz data cables are exposed. - The report identified at least seven cable systems, including FALCON, AAE-1, TGN-Gulf and SEA-ME-WE, and said simultaneous damage could trigger Gulf outages. - Cable faults already average 150 to 200 a year worldwide, sharpening concern over conflict-zone chokepoints. (iscpc.org)
Most internet traffic crosses oceans through fiber-optic cables on the seabed, and a new warning has put one of those routes in the spotlight. (news.un.org) (noaa.gov) Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, published a report on April 23 mapping undersea cables in the Strait of Hormuz. It said the narrow passage is a vulnerable point for the Gulf’s digital economy. (jpost.com) (chosun.com) Tasnim’s graphic identified at least seven major cable systems in or near the strait, including FALCON, Asia Africa Europe-1, TGN-Gulf and SEA-ME-WE. The report said simultaneous damage, whether accidental or deliberate, could cause severe outages across the Persian Gulf. (jpost.com) (submarinecablemap.com) The Strait of Hormuz matters because many cables are tightly clustered there after being laid in Omani waters rather than Iranian waters. That concentration means a single incident can threaten several systems at once. (resources.telegeography.com) TeleGeography said around 200 submarine cable faults occur worldwide each year, with anchors and fishing gear causing most of them. In the Red Sea in 2024, a damaged ship dragged its anchor before sinking and cut three cables. (resources.telegeography.com) (iscpc.org) The immediate risk is uneven across the Gulf. TeleGeography said Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar have land routes through Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates has major landings at Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, and most of Saudi Arabia’s international bandwidth comes from the Red Sea coast. (resources.telegeography.com) The warning landed as conflict has already hit regional tech infrastructure. The Jerusalem Post reported Iranian drones struck data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates during the war, while Iran-linked commentary cast cloud facilities and cable landings as pressure points. (jpost.com) (stimson.org) The disruption is also affecting cable construction. Industry reports said Alcatel Submarine Networks declared force majeure and stopped work in the Persian Gulf on the 2Africa system, leaving its cable vessel idle near Dammam, Saudi Arabia. (capacityglobal.com) (mobileeurope.co.uk) Companies are now planning for a longer disruption in the strait itself. Baker Hughes finance chief Ahmed Moghal told investors on April 25 that the company’s guidance assumes the waterway may not fully reopen until the second half of 2026. (msn.com) That leaves the story less about a single cable cut than about a bottleneck the world usually ignores. A narrow shipping lane that moves oil is also carrying the digital links behind payments, cloud services and cross-border traffic. (resources.telegeography.com) (news.un.org)
