Conflicting reports over location of pirated Saudi supertanker

Karachi News.Net
Tuesday 18th November, 2008 (Alisha Ryu )

Conflicting reports have emerged as to where Somali pirates, who seized a giant oil tanker more than 800 kilometers off the coast of Kenya on Monday, have taken the vessel.

The hijacking of the supertanker was unprecedented in terms of the pirates' reach and in the choice of vessel. Meanwhile, another group of Somali pirates has hijacked a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship with 25 crew members in the Gulf of Aden, off northern Somalia.

VOA sources in Somalia say the Saudi-owned Sirius Star, carrying two million barrels of crude worth $100 million, is to be anchored near Eyl, a remote fishing village in the northern Puntland region. Eyl has long been the base of operations for a group of pirates, who have carried out dozens of attacks on ships this year in the Gulf of Aden and along Somalia's eastern coast.

Pirates in Eyl and the factional leaders and businessmen who control them are holding nearly a dozen ships and their crew and are believed to have earned tens-of-millions of dollars in ransom payments.

The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain says it has information that the supertanker is to be anchored off another haven for pirates near Haradhere in central Somalia.

The head of the East African Seafarers' Association in Mombasa, Kenya, Andrew Mwangura, says negotiations for the release of the $140 million oil tanker and its multinational crew of 25 have begun. He says he expects the pirates to demand a far higher ransom for the release of the vessel than the $1 million and $2 million the pirates have previously demanded from ship owners.

'We are informed that they are already in touch with the ship owner but we do not know who far they [negotiations] have gone,' he said.

According to Mwangura and other maritime officials, the enormous weight of the cargo would have limited the 330-meter supertanker to a top speed about 14 knots - slow enough for armed pirates in fast attack boats to come alongside.

British maritime journalist David Hughes says although the newly-built Sirius Star sits higher in the water than older tankers, it would not have been difficult for experienced gunmen to board her.

'The modern one is higher than an old one,' he explained. 'We are talking 10 to 15 meters. Not easy. Still, you could get a ladder up.'

The hijacking of the vessel, the largest ever taken by pirates, took place despite the presence of warships recently deployed by the United States, the NATO alliance and the European Union to protect one of the world's busiest shipping areas.

Many of the warships have been conducting their patrols in the narrow shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden, where the number of successful piracy attacks on merchant ships have dropped significantly in the past month.

But Monday's attack occurred 830 kilometers off the coast of Kenya in wide open waters that navies cannot adequately cover. The United States' top military officer, Navy Admiral Michael Mullen told reporters that he was stunned by the pirates' ability to operate so far from shore.

Journalist David Hughes says the attack signals a potential catastrophe for the global maritime industry.

'It means that nowhere from somewhere down the middle of the Indian Ocean and westward is safe,' he said. 'And that means you essentially cannot have normal merchant shipping in that huge area.'

The U.S. Navy has not said whether it is considering taking military actions to rescue the tanker.

Email this story to a friend

Comments on this story

Have your say on this story

Your name/nickname	(optional)
Message title
Message
Image verification	(enter the verification code from the image above)