Wednesday 10 November 2021 · below the Index · spike
Iran releases Vietnamese oil tanker
Satellite and radio signals indicated that a Vietnamese oil tanker previously seized by Iran in the Gulf of Oman has been freed. Reports suggested Iran had drained oil from the vessel before release.
Peak 67.1 on Wednesday 10 November 2021. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Over the whole window this ran Mixed-led; on the peak day itself it read Social-led. When the two differ, the fast signals (social, news) spiked and faded while the slow ones (search, research) carried the tail. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 66% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Tuesday 9 November 2021.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 12% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 47% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 0% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Iran Releases Vietnamese Tanker After Draining Oil From Vessel, Crew's Status Unknownnewsweek.com · 2021-11-10
- Iran releases Vietnamese tanker seized in Sea of Omanavaz.ba · 2021-11-10
- Iran releases Vietnamese tanker seized in Sea of Oman | Newspoandpo.com · 2021-11-11
- Alert: Satellite and radio signals suggest Vietnamese oil tanker earlier seized by Iran has been freed; vessel in Gulf of Omanchron.com · 2021-11-10
- Satellite and radio signals suggest Vietnamese oil tanker earlier seized by Iran has been freed; vessel in Gulf of Omansandiegouniontribune.com · 2021-11-10
- Vietnamese oil tanker seized by Iran now free in open waters | Hellenic Shipping News Worldwidehellenicshippingnews.com · 2021-11-10
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- tier C: only a Wikipedia article, GDELT sub-vocabulary term, or social per-term query fired — not yet confirmed as a real maritime incident (Phase C naming/is_maritime_incident does that).
- integrated and peak-day verdicts differ (smoothing artefact likely)
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
- coverage filtered to articles matching this incident specifically (44/44 kept) — see coverage.filter.terms
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Iran releases Vietnamese oil tanker, peak 67.1 on 10 November 2021. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2021-iran-releases-vietnamese-oil-tanker/