Two US Navy vessels — a nuclear-powered submarine and an amphibious ship — collided before dawn on Friday in the mouth of the Persian Gulf, one of the world’s most important sea passages for oil supplies.
There was no damage to the sub’s nuclear propulsion system and no disruption to shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, said Navy spokesman Lieutenant. Nate Christensen, with the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.
Still, the unusual collision between members of the same navy sparked a sudden rise in oil prices — which had been declining on the day — even though the strait remained open.
Benchmark crude for April delivery had traded lower for most of the morning, but then erased those losses and rose US$0.39 to US$52 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent prices rose US$0.50 to US$51.17 on the ICE Futures exchange.
Still, with pressure pulling prices down in the financial crisis, the rise was nowhere near what would have been expected months ago, when such a collision would likely have sent prices skyrocketing.
The incident occurred at about 1am on Friday, when the USS Hartford, a submarine, and the USS New Orleans, an amphibious ship, collided into each other in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the 5th Fleet said in a statement.
The New Orleans suffered a ruptured fuel tank, resulting in an oil spill of approximately 95,000 liters of diesel fuel, Christensen said.
The Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said 15 sailors aboard the Hartford were slightly injured, but able to return to duty. No injuries were reported aboard the New Orleans and both ships are currently operating under their own power.
“The spill is closely monitored,” Christensen said. “The lightweight diesel, although obviously a fairly substantial amount of gasoline, likely dissipated in the ocean.”
Military analyst Loren Thompson of the US-based Lexington Institute said a collision between two vessels in the world’s most sophisticated navy was almost unheard of. It’s more common for ships of different navies to collide, or military vessels and commercial ships, he said.
“It’s almost inevitable that people are relieved of duty pending investigation,” Thomson said by telephone. “These sort of accidents are so uncommon that you have to take it for granted that a major mistake occurred by one of the vessels’ captains.”
Both ships were heading to port and were going in the same direction when the incident occurred in the narrow Hormuz, said Christensen. He said the submarine was submerged at the time but that he could give no further details as the collision is still under investigation.
Later on Friday, the vessels were on their way to port for repairs and evaluation, Christensen said. Following standard security procedures he could not say where the vessels were headed.
The location of the collision was not disclosed.
The two ships were on regularly scheduled deployments to the region and conducting security operations, the Navy said. The Hartford is based in Groton, Connecticut, and the New Orleans is based in San Diego, California. As with all US submarines, the Hartford is nuclear powered. The New Orleans is an amphibious transport dock ship.
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