Iran has seized an oil tanker bound for Turkey in retaliation for the US ‘theft’ of its oil from the same vessel last year, the country’s state media said.
Gunmen stormed the Greek-flagged St. Nikolas near Oman on Thursday and changed course towards Bandar-e Jask in Iran, a British naval organization said.
The US denounced the “unlawful seizure” and demanded that Iran “immediately release” the ship and its 19 crew members.
Four or five “unauthorized boarders are reportedly wearing black military-style uniforms with black masks,” the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said.
Communications with the ship, which was carrying 18 Filipinos and a Greek crew member, have been lost, according to Empire Navigation, the tanker’s Greece-based management company.
Iran seized the St. Nikolas oil tanker off the coast of Oman on Thursday in retaliation for the US “theft” of its oil from the same ship last year, state media said.
US officials previously seized 1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil on board the same ship as part of sanctions against Tehran’s nuclear program
A map showing the region around the Gulf of Oman where the oil tanker St Nikolas was seized by the Iranian Navy
The Iranian Navy later confirmed it had seized the ship, previously named Suez Rajan.
The ship was embroiled in a years-long dispute that began in 2021 and ultimately saw the U.S. Justice Department take 1 million barrels of Iranian crude amid sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“The Navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has seized an American oil tanker in the waters of the Gulf of Oman on court orders,” the official IRNA news agency said.
The seizure was in retaliation for “the violation committed by the Suez Rajan ship… and the theft of Iranian oil by the United States,” IRNA said.
Iran has responded in the past with tit-for-tat measures following seizures of Iranian oil shipments.
The crippling US sanctions, reimposed after Washington’s withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal in 2018, target Iranian oil and petrochemical sales in an effort to reduce Iranian energy exports.
“The Iranian government must immediately release the ship and its crew,” U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
“This unlawful seizure of a commercial vessel is just the latest conduct by Iran or enabled by Iran aimed at disrupting international trade.”
Ambrey, a British maritime risk firm, said the group that boarded the St. Nikolas covered the ship’s cameras. A security guard “reported hearing unknown voices on the phone in addition to the master’s voice,” it added.
The ship was loaded with 145,000 tonnes of crude oil in Basra, Iraq and was destined for Aliaga in Turkey via the Suez Canal, Empire added.
The ship was loaded with 145,000 tons of crude oil in Basra, Iraq and was destined for Aliaga in Turkey via the Suez Canal.
Iran said the ship ‘is being transferred to the ports of the Islamic republic for delivery to the judicial authorities’
Ambrey said the newly renamed tanker was previously prosecuted and fined for carrying sanctioned Iranian oil, which was seized by US authorities.
IRNA, citing the Iranian Navy’s PR office, said the ship “is being transferred to the ports of the Islamic Republic for delivery to the judicial authorities.”
In September, the United States said it had seized the Suez Rajan and its cargo of 980,000 barrels of crude oil months earlier.
The US Justice Department said at the time that the oil on the Greek-operated tanker would be sold to China by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
Shortly after that seizure, Iran seized two tankers: the Marshall Islands-flagged Advantage Sweet as it sailed toward the United States in the Gulf of Oman, and then the Greek-owned Niovi as it sailed from Dubai to Fujairah feed.
The Gulf of Oman, a major route for the oil industry separating Oman and Iran, has witnessed a series of hijackings and attacks over the years, often involving Iran.
Shipping in the resource-rich region is also on heightened alert following weeks of drone and missile attacks in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen.