A Qatari LNG tanker was still stuck off Oman yesterday awaiting salvage operations, shipping data showed, a day after it was hit by a projectile, while the US military said two other tankers had been targeted by Iran in recent days.
The attacks on the tankers prompted Washington to revoke a licence allowing Iran to sell oil and US forces to strike Iranian targets again. President Donald Trump said yesterday an interim agreement to end the war with Iran was ‘over’, comments that triggered a seven per cent jump in global oil prices.
The head of the UN shipping agency condemned the attacks over the past 48 hours and urged parties to allow the evacuation of stranded ships. At least four oil and gas tankers have turned back from trying to transit the Strait, ship-tracking data showed yesterday.
LNG tankers are among the highest-risk ships in the region due to the high value of the vessels and their cargoes.
Qatari LNG tanker Al Rekayyat, loaded with liquefied natural gas, was hit on its port side overnight on Tuesday, one source said, while another briefed on the matter said the vessel was at risk of exploding due to a fire in its engine room.
Efforts are continuing to extinguish the fire, an industry source familiar with the matter said. All the crew have been safely evacuated.
The LNG stored in the tanker’s tanks remains intact and there is no breach of those tanks, the industry source said.
Another industry source assessed that as long as the vessel was not subject to any further attack, it was likely to remain in its current state and not explode.
Meanwhile, 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 the attacks on the Qatari tanker and a Saudi-flagged crude oil tanker, prompting maritime authorities to raise the threat risk for transiting vessels to ‘severe’.
&uuid=(email))