The main oil routes from the Middle East add scares. First due to the attacks by the Houthi rebels of Yemen, who do not conduct censuses in the Red Sea. And now with Iran's confirmation that it has captured an “American tanker” in the Sea of Oman “by court order.”
According to the brief official statement from its Navy, the action would be in response to a seizure of its crude oil by the United States in 2023. And it would have been carried out about 80 kilometers northeast of Sohar, which implies tensioning another of the straits. key through which the export of oil from the Middle East flows, that of Hormuz. The Bab el Mandeb that gives access to the Red Sea continues under the Houthi threat until the Gaza war ends despite the UN resolution demanding an end to hostilities.
The British Navy reported this morning that the oil tanker St. Nikolas, sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands, was boarded “by four or five unauthorized armed persons” after loading some 145,000 tons of oil in Basra, Iraq. Its final destination was Aliaga, in Turkey, as it would have been chartered by the Turkish state oil company Tupras, according to the Greek state agency AMNA.
The ship belongs to the Greek shipping company Empire Navigation, is crewed by 19 people, one Greek and 18 Filipino nationals, and last year, when sailing under the name Suez Rajan, it was in the middle of a dispute between the United States and Iran. The US Department of Justice ended up seizing the million barrels of Iranian crude oil that she was transporting.
The incident occurs amid high tensions in the area due to attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels against ships in the Red Sea. Yesterday they launched, in fact, their largest attack to date with 21 drones and three missiles that were repelled by the United States and British Navy. But the diversion of merchant ship routes to avoid risks triples the costs of transporting goods.
"The Iranian government must immediately release the ship and its crew. This illegal seizure of a commercial vessel is the latest example of Iran's attempt to disrupt international trade," State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters. .
