Gulf of Oman Oil Tanker Incident

This article was last updated on January 11, 2024

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Armed men board oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, ship changes course towards Iranian waters

Armed men boarded an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, between Iran and Oman, on Thursday morning. According to the UKMTO, the oil tanker has changed course towards Iranian territorial waters. Afterwards, contact with the ship was lost. The British Navy is investigating the incident.

Details of the Incident

Four or five armed men are said to have boarded a ship some 50 nautical miles (about 90 kilometers) from the Omani port city of Sohar. According to the UKMTO, they were dressed in military uniforms. Greek shipping company Empire Navigation confirms that it has lost contact with a ship in that area, which is believed to be the St Nikolas, an oil tanker. There are nineteen crew members on board, with eighteen of them from the Philippines and the other crew member from Greece. The ship is en route from Iraq to Turkey and is loaded with oil.

Previous Involvement of the Ship

It is striking that the same ship was at the center of a riot between the United States and Iran in 2022 and 2023. At that time, the ship was still called the Suez Rajan. The US suspected the ship of transporting oil from Iran to China, violating trade sanctions imposed by the US on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. These sanctions were in place due to Iran’s nuclear program. The US military seized the oil tanker in May 2023 and had the cargo transferred to another cargo ship. Iran then threatened to hijack other oil tankers around the Persian Gulf, which borders the Gulf of Oman. When the US Navy released the Suez Rajan, the company changed the ship’s name to its current name St Nikolas.