Wednesday 16 November 2022 · one signal · spike

Pacific Zircon tanker attacked in Gulf of Oman

Type attackVessel Pacific ZirconWhere Gulf of OmanWindow 2022-11-16 → 2022-11-21 (6 days)

A product tanker, Pacific Zircon, was attacked by drone in the Gulf of Oman. CNN obtained exclusive photos of the drone attack aftermath. A drone was later observed circling the ship following the incident.

Peak 67.7 on Wednesday 16 November 2022. The shaded band is the incident window.

Where the attention came from

Search
4%
Research
9%
News
2%
Social (X only)
85%

Social-led, both over the window and on the peak day. 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

67.7
Index at peak (50 = calmest year)
67%
of days since 2020 rank below it
2 days
for the extra attention to halve
12 days
back to the pre-incident level

This was above 67% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Friday 2 September 2022.

How far it spread

Tankers
Car carriers (ro-ro)
Bulk carriers
Container & cargo ships
Shipping in general
Gas carriers

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 →

Politics
48%
Price
34%
Progress
10%
People
7%
Planet
1%

Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 3% 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

entirely acted uponmostly acted uponneutralmostly actorprimary actor

In 52% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 13% of it was strongly negative in tone.

What the coverage said

  • Eastern Pacific Shipping Tanker Hit By 'Projectile' Off Omangcaptain.com · 2022-11-16
  • CNN obtains exclusive photos of drone attack aftermath on Pacific Zircon tanker shiplocalnews8.com · 2022-11-17
  • U.S. Centcom says Iranian-made drone hit Pacific Zircon tanker off Oman | Hellenic Shipping News Worldwidehellenicshippingnews.com · 2022-11-17
  • Eastern Pacific Shipping's product tanker hit by projectile off Omanoffshore-energy.biz · 2022-11-16
  • Projectile' hits oil tanker off Oman coast: shipping companydaily-sun.com · 2022-11-16
  • Shipping Firm Says Projectile Hit Tanker Off Coast of Omanvoanews.com · 2022-11-16

Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.

Data for this incident (JSON)

Maritime Attention Index, incident: Pacific Zircon tanker attacked in Gulf of Oman, peak 67.7 on 16 November 2022. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2022-pacific-zircon-tanker-attacked-in-gulf-of-oman/

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