Giant oil tanker hijacked as piracy 'spins out of control'

Published on Wednesday 9 February 2011 14:51

Suspected Somali pirates captured a US-bound tanker carrying around $200 million (£125m) worth of crude oil in the Indian Ocean yesterday, in one of the biggest hijackings in the area so far.

The Irene SL, the length of three football pitches and with 25 crew on board, was carrying about two million barrels of Kuwaiti oil, or nearly a fifth of daily US crude imports.

The hijacking came a day after an Italian tanker carrying oil worth more than $60 million was snatched by Somali pirates, reinforcing industry fears that the piracy scourge is "spinning out of control".

"The vessel was attacked by armed men," the Irene SL's Greece-based management firm Enesel said. "There is no communication with the vessel."

Commander Susie Thomson, of the multinational Combined Maritime Forces fighting piracy in the area, said the 333-metre tanker was hijacked 220 miles off Oman and was likely to have been attacked by Somali pirates.

She added: "We can only speculate as to where the ship is being taken."

Shipping industry associations have warned that more than 40 per cent of the world's seaborne oil supplies passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea are at risk from Somali pirates, who are able to operate ever further out to sea and for longer periods, using mother ships.

John Drake, a senior risk consultant with security firm AKE, said pirate activity off Oman first emerged in 2009.

"This is a strategic area of concern because it implicates shipping travelling to and from the Persian/Arabian Gulf," he said. "This area also does not have a significant naval presence like the Gulf of Aden."

On Tuesday, pirates firing guns and rocket-propelled grenades hijacked an Italian oil tanker in the Indian Ocean and diverted it towards Somalia.

The Irene SL is only the fourth very large crude carrier to have been hijacked by Somali gangs since piracy escalated three years ago, the International Maritime Bureau said.

Joe Angelo, managing director of Intertanko, an association whose members own the majority of the world's tanker fleet, said the hijacking of the Irene SL marked "a significant shift in the impact of the piracy crisis in the Indian Ocean".

Mr Angelo urged governments to step up anti-piracy efforts. "The piracy situation is now spinning out of control into the entire Indian Ocean," he said. "If piracy in the Indian Ocean is left unabated, it [has] the potential to severely disrupt oil flows to the US and to the rest of the world."

Pirate gangs are making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, and despite successful efforts to quell attacks in the Gulf of Aden, international navies have struggled to contain piracy in the Indian Ocean owing to the vast distances involved.

A recent study showed maritime piracy costs the global economy between $7 billion and $12bn a year.

Meanwhile, the European Union Naval Force said a South Korean fishing vessel, hijacked off Kenya with its 43 crew in October had been released.