Oil shipments are under attack on multiple fronts as fighting escalates in Red Sea, Hormuz and Black Sea

Oil tankers are increasingly coming under fire on several fronts as economic warfare is deployed as a weapon in the escalating conflicts in the Middle East and Europe.

Iran has stepped up its attacks on tankers in and around the Strait of Hormuz this month as it tries to impose its control over the crucial oil corridor. Tehran's Houthi allies in Yemen opened a second front this week, firing on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea after declaring a maritime embargo against Riyadh.

Ukraine, meanwhile, says it has attacked more than 150 tankers, cargo ships, and other vessels associated with Russia's shadow fleet in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea, according to the Kyiv Post.

The oil market is now dealing with wars on multiple fronts, Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy, told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Thursday. Oil prices have surged more than 30% in July with Brent crude breaking $100 per barrel on Thursday for the first time since May, as the security situation has rapidly deteriorated in the southern Red Sea and Hormuz.

Ship traffic through Hormuz has plunged after rebounding in the weeks following the memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S. and Iran on June 17 to reopen the strait.

"After the collapse of the MOU, we have entered the worst phase of this conflict for merchant shipping," said Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of the maritime risk service Marisks, headquartered in Athens, Greece.

"The primary reason is the fact that the Iranians want to assert more authority and control over what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz," Maniatis said.

Some 61 commercial ships have been attacked in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman since March 1, resulting in the deaths of at least 17 seafarers and dozens of injuries, according to the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency.

At least a dozen tankers have been struck this month in and around Hormuz, killing at least two seafarers, as fighting sharply escalates between the U.S. and Iran, according to the IMO data.

The Red Sea attacks now threaten millions of barrels per day of oil that the Saudis redirected through a pipeline to its western coast amid to the security situation in Hormuz. The Saudi exports transit through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

"The Iranians and the Houthis together now are implementing a very significant blow to American national interests, the American oil companies and of course Saudi Arabia," Maniatis said. "But they're not managing to entirely choke exports."

Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea from 2023 to 2025 in response to Israel's war in Gaza dramatically reduced traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb. Shipping through the strait had still not fully recovered.

The Saudis can redirect some oil through a pipeline that stretches from a port on the Red Sea across Egypt to the Mediterranean but the logistics are complex, said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Kpler.

Supertankers cannot transit the Suez Canal fully loaded because the channel is too shallow, Smith said. The Saudis would have to unload half the cargo at the port of Ain Sokhna, pipe it through to the port of Sidi Kerir, send the supertanker through Suez and retrieve the oil on the other side, he said.

The supertanker would then face a much longer journey around Africa to destinations in Asia, and would have to return on the same route through the Suez due to Houthi threats at the Bab el-Mandeb, Smith said. The roundtrip journey would take around eight weeks, he said.

Oil shipments by sea from the Middle East are increasingly facing a "no-way out" scenario due to the disruptions in the Red Sea, Croft said.

In the Black Sea, meanwhile, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium has stopped loading tankers at the Russian port of Novorossiysk due to attacks on vessels. Kazakhstan exports about 80% of its crude oil through that pipeline, Croft said in a note to clients this week.

The Kazakhs have limited alternatives to the pipeline, which means their production of around 1.7 million bpd in June, could face shut-ins, Croft said. The Ukrainians have also pounded Russian refineries, resulting in more than 50% of the country's capacity coming offline, the analyst said.

"Russia has now put a export ban on products and their refineries have been hit so massively by Ukraine," Croft told CNBC. "Russia is one of the largest product exporters, one the largest diesel exporters. It's really tightening the products market as well as the crude market."

The dangerous escalation in the Middle East could potentially spike Brent oil prices beyond the 2022 high of $128 per barrel after Russia invaded Ukraine, Croft said in the note. In a worst-case scenario, where the region descends into full-scale war, Brent could surpass the 2008 peak of $148 per barrel, she said.