Suspected missile strikes hit an Iranian oil tanker off the Saudi Arabian coast yesterday, its owner said, the first Iranian vessel targeted since a spate of attacks in the Persian Gulf that Washington has blamed on Tehran.
National Iranian Tanker Co, which owns the ship, said the hull of the Sabiti was hit by two separate explosions off the port of Jeddah, saying they were “probably caused by missile strikes.”
Oil prices surged more than 2 percent on the news, which raised fresh supply concerns with tensions still high after last month’s attacks on two Saudi Arabian crude oil facilities.
The blasts came just weeks after two of Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil installations were hit, wiping out 5 percent of global production.
National Iranian Tanker Co said the hull of the vessel was hit by two separate explosions about 100km off the Saudi Arabian coast.
“All the ship’s crew are safe and the ship is stable, too,” the company said, adding that those on board were trying to repair the damage.
The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the tanker was attacked “from a location close to the corridor it was passing, east of the Red Sea,” stopping short of naming Saudi Arabia.
Oil was leaking from the tanker into the Red Sea.
“The responsibility of this incident, including the serious environmental pollution, falls on the perpetrators of this reckless act,” ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, adding that investigations were continuing.
According to ship tracking service TankerTrackers, the Sabiti was fully laden with 1 million barrels and had declared the Persian Gulf as its destination.
According to Iranian state television, the blasts could have been the result of a “terrorist attack.”
Pictures published by state television showed the ship’s deck without any outward signs of damage.
The incident came after a spate of still unexplained attacks on shipping in and around the vital seaway to the Persian Gulf involving Iran and Western powers.
Washington accused Tehran of attacking the vessels with mines, something it strongly denied.
There have also been seizures of both Iranian and Western-flagged vessels, and twin attacks claimed by Yemeni rebels allied with Iran on key Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure.
The US has since formed a naval coalition to escort commercial vessels through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
It has been joined by Australia, Bahrain, Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Yesterday’s incident was the first involving an Iranian ship since the Happiness 1 broke down at about the same location in early May.
That ship was repaired in Saudi Arabia and held in the kingdom until July 21 when it was released.
The attack on the Iranian tanker also came ahead of a planned visit to Iran and Saudi Arabia by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is expected to make an effort to defuse tensions between Tehran and Riyadh.
China called on all parties to “exercise restraint” in the “highly complex and sensitive” situation.
Iran has been locked in a standoff with the US and its Arab allies since US President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 deal that gave it relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program.
The British-flagged Stena Impero docked in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, late last month after being detained with its crew in Iran for more than two months.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards on July 19 seized the vessel in the Strait of Hormuz and then impounded it off the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas for allegedly failing to respond to distress calls and turning off its transponder after hitting a fishing boat.
The seizure was widely seen as a tit-for-tat move after authorities in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar detained an Iranian tanker on suspicion it was shipping oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions.
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