ships diverted after saudi oil tanker hijacked - and we pay for it!

surferboy

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Ships diverted after oil tanker hijacked - Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A major Norwegian shipping group on Tuesday ordered its more than 90 tankers to sail around Africa rather than use the Suez Canal after Somali pirates seized a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million in crude.
The U.S. and other naval forces decided against intervening in the seizure of the supertanker. The pirates captured an Iranian cargo ship Tuesday, the seventh vessel seized in 12 days.
Odfjell SE said it made the decision to divert its ships after pirates seized the Saudi Arabian supertanker MV Sirius Star over the weekend hundreds of miles off the coast of Kenya, the most brazen attack yet by Somalian pirates.
"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," said Terje Storeng, Odfjell's president and chief executive. "Unless we are explicitly committed by existing contracts to sail through this area, as from today we will reroute our ships around Cape of Good Hope."
The Gulf of Aden, off Somalia, connects to the Red Sea, which in turn is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal. The route is thousands of miles and many days shorter than going around the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa.
"This will incur significant extra cost, but we expect our customers' support and contribution," said Storeng.
"Odfjell is frustrated by the fact that governments and authorities in general seem to take a limited interest in this very serious problem," he added, describing the seizures as "ruthless, high-level organized crime."
'An outrageous act'
Pirates have seized dozens of ships off Somalia's coast in the last year, generally releasing them after ransoms were paid. NATO has three warships in the Gulf of Aden and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet has ships in the region. But the MV Sirius Star was seized far from where they patrol.
While Somali pirates have seized 36 ships over the past year, among them a Ukrainian ship loaded with arms that is still being held, never had they seized a vessel as large as the Sirius Star and so far out to sea. The tanker was more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, an area far south of the zone where warships have increased their patrols.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called the hijacking "an outrageous act" and said "piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together."
The kingdom, which is the world's leading oil producer, said it will join the international fight against piracy, and Somali officials vowed to try to rescue the supertanker, by force if necessary.
Fisherman startled
The Sirius Star was anchored Tuesday close Harardhere, the main pirates' den on the Somali coast, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crew members.
"As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore," said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman in Harardhere.
"I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship."
He said two small boats floated out to the ship and 18 men — presumably other pirates — climbed aboard with a rope ladder. Spectators watched as a small boat carried food and qat, a narcotic leaf popular in Somalia, to the supertanker.
Salah B. Ka'aki, president and CEO of the tanker's owner Vela International Marine Ltd, said the oil tanker's 25 crew members "are believed to be safe." The statement said they were awaiting further contact from pirates controlling the vessel.
Held for ransom
With naval forces unwilling to intervene, shipowners in past piracy cases have ended up paying ransoms for their ships, cargos and crew.
The latest ship seized was a bulk cargo carrier flying a Hong Kong flag and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. U.S. Navy Commander Jane Campbell of the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said the status of the crew and cargo was not known.
The International Maritime Bureau on Sunday reported five hijackings since Nov. 7, before the hijackings of the Saudi and Iranian ships were announced.
Saud, speaking during a visit to Athens on Tuesday, said Saudi Arabia would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have taken place this year.
He did not elaborate on what steps the kingdom would take to better protect its vital oil tankers. Saudi Arabia's French-equipped navy has 18,000-20,000 personnel, but has never taken part in any high-seas fighting.
Somali government on sidelines
Abdullkadir Musa, the deputy sea port minister in northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, said if the ship tries to anchor anywhere near Eyl — where the U.S. earlier said it was heading — then his forces will try to rescue it.
Forces from Puntland region in northern Somalia have sometimes confronted pirates, though Somalia's weak central government, which is fighting Islamic insurgents, has been unable to mount a response to increasing piracy.
Puntland forces, their guns blazing, freed a Panama-flagged cargo ship from pirates on Oct. 14.
In Vienna, Ehsan Ul-Haq, chief analyst at JBC Energy, said the seizure was not affecting oil prices because traders were focused instead on "the overall economy."
The U.S. Navy is still surrounding a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weaponry that was seized by pirates Sept. 25 off the Somali coast.


you expect my support? you've been ass raping us all for quite some time now, and you just expect our support?
 

Principessa

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Ships diverted after oil tanker hijacked - Somalia
you expect my support? you've been ass raping us all for quite some time now, and you just expect our support?

Surferboy, your youthful enthusiasm for the latest cause would be interesting, perhaps even amusing if you ever did a little research before forming and posting an opinion.

Yes, the Somalian pirates who capture oil tankers and other ships of worth are horrible, vengeful criminals, a.k.a. bad people. However, they do not represent the entire country. :rolleyes: :duh: The majority of men, women, and children are still starving there. So yes, they still need your support and mine too.


Somalia’s Pirates Flourish in a Lawless Nation

Children Starving to Death in Somalia
 

jason_els

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I think you're getting angry with the chauffeur for the actions of the guy in the back seat. The guy whose quote you took umbrage to was referring to Aramco, the Saudi royally-owned oil company, not you the petroleum consumer, though it is true, you will ultimately pay the cost. Mr. Odfjell just manages the Norwegian shipping company and is speaking of the oil companies who hire his firm's ships.

The piracy situation has been intolerable for a long time. Governments are loathe to get involved with it and most businesses just chalk-it-up to a cost of doing business. It's ultimately cheaper to pay ransoms and lose a few African or Asian deckhands than it is to deploy military force. The problem for governments come when the pirates seize something they shouldn't get their hands on either because it creates a publicity (rich westerners on their yachts), or a security threat. The US really only opened its eyes when that Ukrainian ship full of weapons was seized because there is heavy terrorist infiltration in Somalia and the surrounding area. Those weapons could well end-up in the hands of people who could use them against western interests.

I'm a bit dismayed that the article doesn't mention the state of Somalia itself. The writer makes it sound as if Somalia actually has a central government. It doesn't. Somalia is a failed state. There is a warlord government that the west recognizes, but it's really no more powerful than any of the other warlord fiefdoms in the country. Somalia is weak. They can't fight any of the pirates and, in many cases, are dependent upon the pirates for income. Expecting any meaningful cooperation from Somalia basically means that one warlord doesn't like what the pirates who belong to another warlord are doing and are willing to accept covert help from western nations to do the job. It's all very quiet as the US's last foray into Somalia was widely seen as a failure and the US government doesn't want, despite the fact the free flow of oil from the middle east is a genuine security concern, to become publicly involved.

Saudi Arabia does have a navy capable of providing safe escort to some oil tankers in the region, but as the article points out, the Saudi navy is wholly untested and if the Saudis fail in any mission, they will lose face and the pirates will become more bold. There is also the economic fact that Saudi knows full well that if the piracy issue becomes a full-tilt threat, that the west will come in and do the dirty work for them. There is also the issue of sheer numbers. The number of ships passing through the area is far more than the Saudi navy can guarantee safe escort.

This is a great mission for NATO and one that is legitimate in every sense of the word. I hope this incident will cause NATO to provide an on-going military presence in the seas off Somalia and in the equally-threatened Malacca Straits through which a vast quantity of the world's shipping passes.
 

vince

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Surferboy, your youthful enthusiasm for the latest cause would be interesting, perhaps even amusing if you ever did a little research before forming and posting an opinion.

Yes, the Somalian pirates who capture oil tankers and other ships of worth are horrible, vengeful criminals, a.k.a. bad people. However, they do not represent the entire country. :rolleyes: :duh: The majority of men, women, and children are still starving there. So yes, they still need your support and mine too.
That is a very condescending post.

Sorry NJ. I think you are the one that needs to read a little more closely. The quote surferboy was referring to when he said "you've been ass raping us... etc", was highlighted in bold in the text of the article. It was the shipping company owner saying that he expects support and contribution from his customers (higher prices).

On the other hand, maybe surferboy was talking to the Somalis. We will have to hear what he says.

But in any case, your reply was patronizing. He is not in the first grade.
 

str82fcuk

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Hmm actually, outside of actual oil exporting countries, the USA has just about the cheapest gas in the world. So I don't know if anyone is getting 'ass-raped' here ... And I believe the actual transport costs are only a fraction of the final pump price.

In any case, consumers dependent on oil imported from the mideast are already paying for this indirectly due to the higher insurance premiums and ransom payments, so the net cost of shipping around the Cape, where a lot of the big tankers have to go anyway, is probably not much if anything at all. Although it does take longer.

Interesting that the tanker was taken 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombassa !! It must surely have been heading for the Cape anyway!? In any case if the pirates can operate with impunity so far out and if present trends continue then basically the whole northwest of the Indian Ocean is at risk.

Also interesting that one of the other recent big ships taken was Hong Kong registered. I am sure that China would happily take out the pirates (and the warlords) given half a chance. Especially seeing as they are so keen already on muscling up their growing presence in Africa. Of course they won't do it as long as NATO is trying to. But I did hear that several nations have been asking China to contribute to the UN/NATO? contingent in Afghanistan!? We sure do live in interesting times.
 
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str82fcuk

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Here is another report on the subject. The ship was heading for the Cape. And the USA/NATO/EU/France and Russia are doing anti-piracy patrols in the area (Somalia used to be in the Russian sphere of influence in Africa during the cold war, while Ethiopia and Sudan were/are in the Chinese sphere).

By Abdiqani HassanBOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) - A Saudi supertanker hijacked by pirates with its $100 million oil cargo was anchoring off Somalia on Tuesday, the U.S. navy said.
"We can confirm the ship is anchoring off the Somali coast at Haradheere," said Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Haradheere is situated roughly in the center of Somalia's coastline.
"All 25 crew members on board are believed to be safe," Vela International, the shipping arm of state oil giant Saudi Aramco, said in an earlier statement. "At this time, Vela is awaiting further contact from the pirates in control of the vessel."
The Sirius Star is the biggest vessel ever hijacked. It was seized in the Indian Ocean off east Africa on Sunday in the boldest attack by pirates operating from lawless Somalia.
The pirates have driven up insurance costs, forced some ships to go round South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, secured millions of dollars in ransoms and now carried out one of the most spectacular strikes in maritime history.
The capture of the Star 450 nautical miles southeast of Kenya's Mombasa port, and way beyond the Gulf of Aden where most attacks have taken place this year, is the culmination of several years' increasing activity.
"The latest attack looks like a deliberate two fingers from some very bright Somalis. Anyone who describes them as a bunch of camel herders needs to think again," a Nairobi-based Somalia specialist said.
The seizure was carried out despite an international naval response, including from the NATO alliance and European Union, to protect one of the world's busiest shipping areas.
U.S, French and Russian warships are also off Somalia.
The U.S. navy's Christensen said he did not anticipate any U.S. ships being sent to the region but that the navy was monitoring the situation closely.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said his country would throw its weight behind a European-led initiative to step up security in shipping lanes off Africa's east coast.
"This is an initiative that we are going to join and so are many other countries of the Red Sea," he told a news conference in Athens. "This outrageous act by the pirates, I think, will only reinforce the resolve of the countries of the Red Sea and internationally to fight piracy."
At least one analyst said that, given the lawless nature of the region, negotiators would have no other option but to discuss a huge cash ransom for the return of the vessel.
Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Association, said he thought a hijacked Nigerian tug was a "mother-ship" for the November 15 seizure. The fully-loaded supertanker was probably low in the water and therefore easy to board, he said.
Normally, the increasingly well-armed and sophisticated Somali pirates use speedboats and satellite phones to coordinate attacks, with the mother-ship as a base for their operations.
The seizure of the Sirius, which is three times the size of an aircraft carrier, follows another high-profile strike earlier this year by the pirates when they captured a Ukrainian ship carrying 33 tanks and other military equipment.
They are still holding that vessel and about a dozen others, with more than 200 crew members hostage. Given that the pirates are well-armed with grenades, machineguns and rocket-launchers, foreign forces in the area are steering clear of direct attacks.
Ship owners are negotiating ransoms.
Middle East energy analyst Samuel Ciszuk said this would almost certainly be the case with the Sirius.
"Due to Somalia's status as a failed state and the anarchic nature of politics in the country, the negotiators have no other option but to respond to the pirates; there is no government which can intervene," he said.
The Sirius held as much as 2 million barrels of oil, more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily exports.
It had been heading for the United States via the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. It had 25 crew from Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
Chaos onshore in Somalia, where Islamist forces are fighting a Western-backed government, has spawned this year's upsurge in piracy. The Islamists, who are close to the capital Mogadishu, say that if they take control they will stop piracy as they did during a brief, six-month rule of south Somalia in 2006."
Hijacked Saudi tanker anchoring off Somalia: U.S. navy - Yahoo! Canada News
 

surferboy

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On the other hand, maybe surferboy was talking to the Somalis. We will have to hear what he says.

no, i was talkin about the oil exec (or whoever said the highlighted quote) who was saying that he expects peoples to pay extra for "support the company"


His peoples would disagree otherwise.

what?



Is this a philosophical question, surfer? :biggrin1: By the way, how'd you do?

i dunno yet. his lazy ass hasn'y graded them yet =/
 

houtx48

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&#8230; or start carrying a small crew whose only job is turning them into fish food before they board in the first place...................... i hear that happens from time to time, like the cruise ship that had a missile launcher or something along that line.
 

vince

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… or start carrying a small crew whose only job is turning them into fish food before they board in the first place.
I've been thinking the same thing. Why aren't some of these ships armed to the teeth? If they got a couple Exocets up the ass they might think twice about being pirates.