Hijacked oil-laden Greek supertanker reaches Somali coast

Dec 2, 2009, 11:16 GMT

Nairobi/London - A massive Greek oil tanker hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean has reached the Somali coastline, the European Union's anti-piracy mission off Somalia said Wednesday.

The Greek-flagged MV Maran Centaurus, capable of carrying 300,000 tonnes, is the second-largest ship to be seized in the pirate- infested waters off lawless Somalia.

EU NAVFOR said in a statement that the ship, which was seized 600 nautical miles north-east of the Seychelles on Sunday, was now at anchor close to the pirate haven of Hobyo.

It was not clear how many barrels of crude oil the ship was carrying when it and its crew of 16 Filipinos, nine Greeks, one Romanian and two Ukrainians were seized.

But it was headed from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia to the US and was believed to be carrying close to its capacity, meaning the cargo would be worth in the vicinity of 150 million dollars.

The largest ship to be seized - Saudi tanker Sirius Star, which was carrying 2 million barrels of oil worth around 100 million dollars at the time - was released late last year after a ransom of 3 million dollars was paid to the pirates.

The seizure of the Sirius Star, taken during a huge upswing in piracy, helped prompt the deployment of over a dozen international warships to the Gulf of Aden - one of the world's busiest waterways - to combat the piracy.

However, the pirates have simply moved their operations further out into the Indian Ocean to avoid patrols and the number of attacks in 2009 so far is almost double the 2008 figure, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

An IMB official in London told the German Press Agency dpa that as of November 30 there had been been a total of 204 attacks by suspected Somali pirates. Of those attacks, 42 were successful.

Some eleven ships, and over 200 crew members, are still in pirate hands.