Iran Seizes Second Oil Tanker in a Week

Waal Street Journal-May 3rd , 2023

Incident is seen as retribution for the U.S. seizing an Iranian crude shipment aboard another tanker

Iranian forces seized a Panama-flagged oil tanker on Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy said, marking the second time in less than a week that Iran has captured a commercial ship in the region.

A dozen small Iranian naval boats swarmed the 360-yard-long Niovi after it left Dubai en route to the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah early Wednesday morning, the navy said. The Iranian boats forced the Niovi to reverse course and head toward Iran’s coast.

The seizure came six days after Iranian forces in the Gulf of Oman used a helicopter and boats to seize the Advantage Sweet, a Greek-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker bound for Texas.

Two people directly involved in efforts to release the Advantage Sweet told The Wall Street Journal that its seizure was in retaliation for an American move to redirect in late April another Greek-owned tanker moving Iranian crude to China towards Texas.

They said the U.S. Justice Department had obtained a court order to seize the Suez Rajan tanker, operated by Athens-based Empire Navigation. Brokers in Singapore said the ship had been idle for the past three months, but it departed in early April and switched off its automatic identification system on April 22 when it was off Madagascar. The brokers also said the ship is now enroute to Houston.

Those people said they didn’t know what was behind Iran’s seizure of the Niovi. The Justice Department hasn’t responded to requests for comment.

The Niovi is owned by Greece-based Altomare, which didn’t return calls for comment. It isn’t known whether it was laden but such tankers can move up to 2 million barrels of crude.

“Iran’s continued harassment of vessels and interference with navigational rights in regional waters are unwarranted, irresponsible and a present threat to maritime security and the global economy,” said the U.S. Navy, which released video footage of the seizure.

Tehran’s prosecutor Ali Salehi said the Niovi had been impounded as the result of a complaint and warrant issued by the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, according to the state-affiliated Young Journalists Club news agency. The news agency didn’t offer any details on what led to the decision to seize the ship.

The latest seizure comes amid a new uptick in regional tensions between Washington and Tehran. Last month, the U.S. military announced its decision to send a guided-missile submarine into the region in a public show of force meant to deter Iran from attacking commercial ships.

Also on Wednesday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi landed in Syria in an effort to bolster ties between the two close allies and project Tehran’s influence in the Middle East amid a broader geopolitical realignment in the region.