The Indonesian government said the coast guard seized two Chinese and Iranian supertankers over the weekend and sent them to a Batam terminal for further investigation for allegedly illegally transiting oil in the country’s waters.
The Indonesian Coast Guard seized the Iranian-flagged MT Horse and the Panamanian-flagged Freya off West Kalimantan province on Sunday (Jan. 24) and sent them to the Riau Islands province (Jan. 24) for further investigation. The tankers were seized and sent to Batam island in Riau Islands province for investigation. The tankers arrived at the dock at around 3 p.m. (0600 GMT) to 4 p.m.
Coast Guard spokesman Wisnu Pramadita said the crew was “caught red-handed” while transferring oil from the Iranian tanker to the Panamanian tanker, around which there was also an oil spill. The Guardia Civil accused the tankers of trying to hide their identities, failing to display their flags, turning off their vessel identification systems, anchoring illegally and failing to respond to radio calls.
According to Reuters, 61 crew members of both vessels were detained, with mainly Chinese and Iranian nationalities on board. Pramadita said the seizure of the ships and personnel had nothing to do with the U.S. sanctions.
According to shipping data from Refinitiv Eikon, the two supertankers were spotted in Singapore waters earlier this month, with the National Iranian Tanker Company’s (NITC) MT Horse almost full of Crude Oil, but the Freya The “Freya” was empty. “The owner of the Freya is a Chinese company called Shanghai Future Ship Management Co.
The registered office address of Shanghai Future Ship Management Co. is listed in the Chinese company directory under another company named Shanghai Chengda Ship Management Co. Reuters made repeated calls to the company but no one answered.
Each of these supertankers can carry 2 million barrels of oil, and the MT Freya has recently delivered two crude oil cargoes totaling about 4 million barrels to the ports of Qingdao on China’s east coast and Yingkou in the northeast, said Emma Li, senior crude analyst at Refinitiv.
According to the International Maritime Organization (OMI), ships from all countries must use transponders to ensure safe and transparent navigation. Iran has previously been accused by the international community of shutting down its identification system and disabling tracking systems to evade U.S. sanctions.
Indonesia’s arrest on Sunday comes after numerous international investigations into the Chinese Communist Party, which is known to remain the largest remaining buyer of Iranian oil. The White House had warned Chinese shipping companies in 2019 not to turn off transponders on their ships to cover up their oil exports with Iran.
In 2018, former U.S. President Donald Trump (Trump) imposed sanctions aimed at cutting Iran’s oil exports to zero, an industry that is Iran’s main export earner. The move was the latest round of sanctions reimposed after Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
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