Dubai, United Arab Emirates – An oil tanker from the Saudi port city of Jeddah exploded early Monday morning after being attacked by an “external source”, a shipping company said, adding that another ship had come under attack in the middle of the kingdom. Years of war in Yemen.
Tommy Xia / Aerial Photographer SG / AB
The blatant attack on the Singapore-flagged PW Rhine, contracted by the UK’s largest Saudi Arabian oil company’s trading group, marks the fourth attack targeting Saudi energy infrastructure in a month. It also closed the port of Jeddah, the most important shipping port for the kingdom.
It also rekindles concerns about shipping safety at the Red Sea, an important transportation hub for global shipping and energy supplies, which largely avoided the chaos of regional tensions over the United States and Iran last year.
According to data analytics firm Refinitive, PW Rhine on Saturday took 60,000 metric tons of unleaded petrol from an Aramco refinery in Yanbu, Jeddah. That is where the incident seems to have taken place.
The ship was “ejected when it was attacked from an external source,” said Haydana, the owner of the ship and a tanker company under the BW Group.
The strike caused the ship to explode and catch fire, but all 22 sailors on board escaped unharmed and firefighters later extinguished the blaze, Hyfna said. Although the company said it was assessing the damage, some oil may have contaminated the water along with the vessel.
Hours after the bombing, Saudi Arabia did not agree.
The United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations, under the British Royal Navy, urged vessels in the area to be vigilant and said investigations were ongoing. Jita later said the port was closed “for an unknown period” without elaboration.
Maritime intelligence agency Triad Global also reported on the bombing. The 5th Fleet of the U.S. Navy, patrolling the Midwest, did not respond to a request for comment.
No one immediately put forward a reason for the incident. However, the eruption came after a mine exploded and damaged a ship from Saudi Arabia last month. Another mysterious attack targeted a cargo ship earlier this month from the small port city of Niston in the Far East of Yemen.
Yemeni Iranian-backed Houthi rebels They used sea mines before the long war against the Saudi-led coalition. However, the Houthis have not commented on last month’s attack.
If the Houthis were behind Monday’s bombings, it would “mark a fundamental shift in both target capabilities and purpose,” Troy Global said.
Since mid-November, the Saudi Arabian bombed drone has attempted to attack Jazan, as well as a Houthi-launched naval missile attack on an Aramco oil station in Jeddah.
Xinhua / Tu Yifan / Getty
The incidents come as tensions between the United States and Iran escalate over the past year over a series of incidents in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the nearby Gulf of Oman. Although the United States has formed a new coalition to monitor shipping there after those incidents, it will not operate in the Red Sea.
In recent weeks, an attack on Iran has killed a key scientist who founded Tehran’s military nuclear program two decades ago, which is suspected to have been carried out by Israel.
As Western countries began to distribute corona virus vaccines, the attack pushed up oil prices. Benchmark Brent crude traded above $ 50 a barrel in trading on Monday.
The Red Sea, the Suez Canal to the north and the Bob El-Mandeb Strait to the south are important shipping lanes for cargo and global energy supply. Its currents change seasonally and now flow north. Saudi Arabia recently accused the Houthis of dumping mines in the southern Red Sea, which could lead to Jeddah.
The Red Sea was cut before. In 1984, about 19 ships declared strike mines, and only one of them was recovered and disarmed, according to the UN expert panel investigating the war in Yemen. Any new tunnel would pose a risk to global shipping and it would be difficult to detect any tunneling activity – raising risks and the cost of insurance for those traveling in the region.
“Continued expansions in the Red Sea will definitely raise the risk profile of the region,” said Ranjit Raja, head of oil and shipping research in the Middle East and North Africa. “It may also increase insurance premiums for additional protection for vessels operating in the region, which will have an impact on shipping costs.”