‘External source’ causes oil tanker blast off Saudi Arabia
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES » An oil tanker off Saudi Arabia’s port city of Jiddah suffered an explosion early Monday after being hit by “an external source,” a shipping company said, suggesting another vessel has come under attack off the kingdom amid its yearslong war in Yemen.
The attack on the Singapore-flagged BW Rhine, which had been contracted by the trading arm of the kingdom’s massive Saudi Arabian Oil Co., marks the fourth assault targeting Saudi energy infrastructure in a month.
It also apparently shut down Jiddah port, the most important shipping point for the kingdom, which later said a bombladen boat like the remotecontrolled ones used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels caused the explosion.
The explosion renews concerns about ship safety in the Red Sea, a crucial transit zone for global shipping and energy supplies that largely had avoided the chaos of regional tensions involving the U. S. and Iran last year.
The BW Rhine had berthed at Jiddah on Saturday, carrying over 60,000 metric tons of unleaded gasoline from an Aramco refinery at Yanbu for consumption in the kingdom, according to the data- analysis firm Refinitiv. It was there that the incident appears to have occured.
The ship was “been hit from an external source whilst discharging,” said Haifna, a tanker company under the BW Group that owns and operates the ship.
The strike caused an explosion and fire onboard the ship, damaging its hull. All 22 sailors on board escaped without injury and firefighters later extinguished the blaze, Haifna said. Some oil may have polluted the water alongside the ship, though the company said it was still assessing the damage.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Some 12 hours after the attack became public, the state-run Saudi Press Agency ran a statement quoting an anonymous Energy Ministry official blaming the explosion on a bomb-laden boat. It did not blame anyone for the attack, despite the Houthis having used drone boats in the past.
“These acts of terrorism and vandalism, directed against vital installations, go beyond the kingdom and its vital facilities, to the security and stability of energy supplies to the world and the global economy,” the statement said. The United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations, an organization under Britain’s royal navy, urged ships in the area to exercise caution and said investigations were ongoing. It later said Jiddah port had been shut down for a “duration unknown,” without elaborating.
Dryad Global, a maritime intelligence firm, also reported the blast. The U. S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which patrols the Mideast, did not respond to a request for comment.