Iran seizes oil tanker in Gulf of Oman
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s navy captured the oil tanker St. Nikolas on Thursday in the Gulf of Oman which only months earlier had seen its cargo of Iranian oil seized by the United States over sanctions linked to Tehran’s nuclear program, further escalating the tensions gripping the Mideast’s waterways.
The vessel was previously known as the Suez Rajan when it was involved in a yearlong dispute beginning in 2021 that ultimately saw the U.S. Justice Department take the 1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil on it.
The seizure also comes after weeks of attacks by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea, including their largest barrage ever of drones and missiles launched late Tuesday. That has raised the risk of possible retaliatory strikes by U.S.-led forces now patrolling the vital waterway, especially after a United Nations Security Council vote on Wednesday condemning the Houthis and as American and British officials warned of potential consequences over the attacks.
Iran’s state-run television acknowledged the seizure late Thursday afternoon, hours after armed men boarded it, linking it to the earlier oil seizure. It said Iran’s navy, rather than its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, conducted the seizure. Past tense incidents at sea have largely involved the Guard.
The Iranian navy’s “seizure of the oil tanker does not constitute hijacking; rather, it is a lawful undertaking sanctioned by a court order and corresponds to the theft of Iran’s very own oil,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations told The Associated Press in a statement. “Adhering to the established legal procedures is the most prudent approach for the resolution of this matter.”
The St. Nikolas is associated with the Greek shipping company Empire Navigation. In a statement to the AP, Athens-based Empire Navigation acknowledged losing contact with the vessel, which has a crew of 18 Filipinos and one Greek national.
“Empire have no such knowledge of a court order or the Iranian navy having seized their vessel, and have still not been contacted by anyone,” the company said.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, said Thursday’s 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.
The U.K. military-run group described receiving a report from the ship’s security manager of hearing “unknown voices over the phone” alongside the ship’s captain. It said further efforts to contact the ship had failed and that the men who boarded the vessel wore “black military-style uniforms with black masks.”
The private security firm Ambrey said that “four to five armed persons” boarded the ship, which it identified as the oil tanker St. Nikolas. It said the men covered the surveillance cameras as they boarded.
The tanker had been off the city of Basra, Iraq, loading crude oil bound for Aliaga, Turkey, for the Turkish refinery firm Tupras. Satellite-tracking data analyzed by the AP last showed the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker had turned and headed toward the port of Bandar-e Jask in Iran.
Attention began focusing on the Suez Rajan in February 2022, when the group United Against Nuclear Iran said it suspected the tanker carried oil from Iran’s Khargh Island, its main oil distribution terminal in the Persian Gulf. Satellite photos and shipping data analyzed at the time by the AP supported the allegation.
For months, the ship sat in the South China Sea off the northeast coast of Singapore before suddenly sailing for the Texas coast without explanation. The vessel discharged its cargo to another tanker in August, which released its oil in Houston as part of a Justice Department order.
In September, Empire Navigation pleaded guilty to smuggling sanctioned Iranian crude oil and agreed to pay a $2.4 million fine over a case involving the tanker.
After the vessel, then-Suez Rajan, headed for America, Iran seized two tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, including one with cargo for major U.S. oil company Chevron Corp. In July, the top commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s naval arm threatened further action against anyone offloading the Suez Rajan, with state media linking the recent seizures to the cargo’s fate.