Supertanker crew safe as pirates open talks

TeleGraph

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The crew of a supertanker seized by Somali pirates are well and have not been hurt, according to the ship's operator.

The Sirius Star, with two Britons among its crew of 25, was seized off the coast of Kenya and has since arrived off Somalia, where the pirates launch their raids on ships.

Speaking from the Dubai headquarters of Vela International Marine, which operates the Saudi-owned Sirius Star, a spokesman told the Telegraph that an incident room had been set up under a British merchant sailor, Captain John Sparkhall, to deal with the incident. He said that the crew were unharmed.

He added: "At this time all I can say is that the ship, the Sirius Star, is off the coast of Somalia. I am not at liberty to discuss whether we have made contact yet with those responsible for seizing the ship.

"The incident room is busy at the moment working on this, with Captain Sparkhall, and we will release new information at the first available opportunity."

The ship, which is one of the largest supertankers currently afloat, was only launched in March.

Most incidents involving Somali pirates are resolved peacefully after negotiations and the payment of a ransom.

According to some sources about £50 million has been paid by the owners of ships taken off Somalia this year.

The pirates are likely to demand a large ransom for the supertanker which was carrying two million barrels of Saudi crude oil, worth about £60 million at today's prices.

Britain has meanwhile handed over eight Somali pirates to Kenyan authorities to prosecute after they were captured at sea last week.

Speaking in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Bob Ainsworth, Britain's Armed Forces Minister, said that the Royal Navy had handed over to the eight suspected Somali pirates captured last week an incident at sea a week earlier.

"I am pleased to announce that earlier today, the Royal Navy successfully completed a counter-piracy operation by handing over to the custody of the Kenyan police eight suspected pirates interdicted on the 11th of November during an incident at sea," he said.

On Nov 11, the HMS Cumberland was conducting a routine Nato-led patrol in the Gulf of Aden when it spotted a dhow which had been identified in an attempt to hijack a Danish vessel, the MV Powerful.

The British vessel attempted to stop the dhow but an exchange of fire broke out in which two suspected Somali pirates were killed by Royal Marines.

Mr Bob Ainsworth acknowledged that piracy off the East African coast was getting worse and said foreign navies must take bold action or risk the buccaneers only becoming more bold.

"We're under no illusion about the scale of the challenge presented by piracy," he said.

"This is a huge problem, not just for countries in the region, but for world trade. We need to show that we're able to tackle it, otherwise other people are going to learn lessons from those people perpetrating this kind of crime."

The seas off the Horn of Africa have overtaken the waters around Indonesia as home to the world's most active pirates, in large part because the 2004 tsunami destroyed the pirate fleets in the far east.

But Nick Day, chief executive officer of the risk assessment firm Diligence, said that while the problem of Somali pirates is growing it should not be exaggerated.

"Less than half of a per cent of the shipping that transits the Gulf of Aden has been affected by piracy so it remains a relatively low priority problem," he said.

"I don't see the world's navies, including the Royal Navy and the US Navy, diverting a large number of their assets to deal with a problem of this scale."

The US Navy said the Sirius Star was seized far off the coast of Kenya on Saturday and that the bandits were taking the ship to the Somali port of Eyl, known as a hub of pirate activity.

A coalition of warships from eight nations, including Britain, America and other Nato nations, is currently patrolling waters around the Gulf of Aden leading to and from the Suez Canal.

This is the area where most of the more than 80 attacks this year have taken place.

The Sirius Star, however, was taken much further south, about 450 miles off the Kenyan coast, in an area which had not seen any pirate activity and was therefore not covered by the western flotilla.

The US Navy's 5th Fleet said it was monitoring the situation but didn't expect to send warships to surround the vessel as it has done with a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weaponry the was seized off the Somali coast on Sept 25 and remains in pirate hands.

"I don't anticipate any US ships on station," said Lt Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet.

"We remain deeply concerned because this attack represents a fundamental change in pirates' ability to hijack bigger vessels farther out at sea."

At 1,080 feet (329 meters) long, the Sirius Star is the largest ship ever taken by Somali pirates, though large chemical tankers and freighters have also been hijacked in the past.

SOURCE: Telegraph, Tuesday, November 18, 2008