By Emily Chow and Florence Tan
SINGAPORE, July 8 (Reuters) - At least four oil and gas tankers have turned back from attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz, ship-tracking data showed, as renewed attacks on vessels in the critical waterway heightened safety and security concerns.
The diversions come after a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker and a Saudi-flagged crude oil tanker were damaged near the strait on Tuesday following reports that Iran fired missiles at ships in the waterway, prompting
maritime authorities to raise the threat risk for transiting vessels to "severe."
LNG tankers - Al Ghariya, Duhail and Al Ruwais - have all been inching westward towards the Strait of Hormuz before changing course to turn away late on Tuesday, showed data from analytics firms Kpler and LSEG. All three tankers controlled by QatarEnergy were empty and heading towards Qatar's Ras Laffan export facility to load cargoes.
Meanwhile, LSEG and Kpler data also showed an Indian-flagged tanker, carrying 2 million barrels of Kuwaiti crude loaded late last week, made a U-turn off the tip of Oman at the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.
At least 16 LNG cargoes from Ras Laffan and 10 from ADNOC's Das Island terminal in the United Arab Emirates have exited the strait since the conflict began in late February. But this is still a fraction of the roughly 7 million metric tons on average typically shipped from both export hubs each month.
A queue of ballast or empty vessels waiting to load at Ras Laffan has also built up, reaching more than 10 ships in early July, according to Vortexa analysts.
Over 50 QatarEnergy- and ADNOC-controlled ballast vessels are stationed around the Middle East Gulf, India and the Malacca strait, with some switching off their Automatic Identification System signals for more than 10 days, Vortexa added.
Still, at least two crude oil tankers managed to exit the strait. The VLCC Tenjun, managed by Nippon Yusen KK and carrying 2 million barrels of Qatari crude loaded in late February, exited the Strait of Hormuz late on Tuesday.
VLCC Pertamina Pride, managed by Indonesia's state energy firm Pertamina, also exited the strait on Tuesday, with its transponder switched off, shipping data showed. The vessel is carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi crude loaded in early March.
Nippon Yusen declined to comment on the Tenjun tanker. Pertamina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Emily Chow and Florence Tan; additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo, Fransiska Nangoy in Jakarta and Nidhi Verma in New Delhi)
