Iranian navy seizes oil tanker in Gulf of Oman

Middle East, News January 13, 2024 , by IRIA No Comments

Iran’s navy seized an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman on January 11, 2024. The tanker was carrying Iraqi oil to Turkiye. The move comes as a retaliation to the United States, which seized the same oil tanker last year when it was carrying Iranian oil.

The tanker ship named St. Nicholas was flying the Marshal Island flag when it was seized by the Iranian navy around the Gulf of Oman. The ship was being operated by the Greek shipping company Empire Navigation. In a statement, Athens-based Empire Navigation acknowledged losing contact with the vessel, which has a crew of 18 Filipinos and one Greek national.

The vessel, carrying approximately 145,000 metric tons of oil, was loaded at the Iraqi port of Basra. Its intended destination was Aliaga in western Turkey after passing through the Suez Canal, as reported by Empire Navigation.

Iran seized the ship in a retaliatory step. The seized vessel was previously known as the Suez Rajan and it was involved in a yearlong dispute. The ship was carrying more than 980,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil last year when it was seized and the oil confiscated by the U.S. sanctions enforcement.

The U.S. said at the time that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had been trying to send contraband Iranian oil to China, in violation of U.S. sanctions.

“The Navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran seized an American oil tanker in the waters of the Gulf of Oman by a court order,” an Iranian state-run media outlet said as it confirmed the reports of the tanker’s seizer.

“After the theft of Iranian oil by the United States last year, St Nikolas tanker was seized by Iran’s Navy”, the navy said, as cited by the Iranian news agency Fars.

*^{Iranian navy seized an oil tanker off the coast of Oman. (Image Credit: Twitter)}*

According to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, the seizure began early in the morning in the waters between Oman and Iran in an area transited by ships coming in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil passes.

In Washington, the Pentagon said Iranian forces unlawfully boarded St Nikolas in the Gulf of Oman and forced it to change course toward Iranian territorial waters. The White House condemned the seizure. “No justification whatsoever to seize it, none whatsoever. They need to let it go,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said.

Iran’s seizer of the oil tanker has added to the regional tension, which is already high following Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip. Since October, the Houthis in Yemen have targeted commercial vessels in the Red Sea as a demonstration of support for the Palestinian militant group Hamas in its conflict with Israel. These incidents have primarily occurred in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, located to the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula.