A small oil tanker that Iran accused of smuggling fuel was empty of any cargo when Iranian forces seized it at gunpoint in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month, according to the company that chartered the ship.

Iran impounded the tanker Riah when it was scheduled to sail to Oman to load fuel for further shipment to Berbera in Africa’s Somaliland, said Rishi Kumar, who heads the charterer, KRB Petrochemicals. He denied Tehran’s assertion that the Riah was smuggling 1 million liters of fuel — about half its capacity — out of Iran and intended to transfer the cargo to foreign vessels.

Kumar’s account of the Riah’s seizure highlights the perils for tankers and crews braving the world’s most important waterway for energy shipments.

Tensions have flared in the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks as Iran resists U.S. sanctions that are crippling its oil exports and lashes out after the seizure on July 4 of one of its ships near Gibraltar. Iran impounded a British tanker, the Stena Impero, in the Strait 15 days later. Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, accounts for about a third of the world’s seaborne oil flows.

Read more about Iran’s seizure of the tanker Riah near the Strait of Hormuz

Ship tracking data show that the Riah regularly shuttles through the Strait, and its route suggests it loads Iranian oil products in the nearby Gulf of Oman and transfers the fuel to other vessels off the coast of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, according to Tel Aviv-based maritime analysis firm Windward.

However, KRB Petrochemicals, based in the U.A.E., hasn’t been asked to use the Riah to transport Iranian oil since its charter contract started on June 15, Kumar said in a phone interview.

The Riah was in the Strait and sailing into the Gulf on July 14 when four small boats approached it near Iran’s Qeshm Island. Iranian forces boarded the ship, “put a gun to the captain” and ordered the crew to lie on the deck, Kumar said. They disabled the engine and towed the vessel to Iran, he said.

The 12 crew members, most of them Indian, were arrested. Nine mariners have since been released and will fly to New Delhi on Tuesday, while the remaining three, including the captain, remain in custody, Kumar said.

The Riah is owned by Iraq-based Riah Shipping & Trading Inc., he said. KRB Petrochemicals, the charterer, is based in Sharjah’s Hamriyah Free Zone. The U.A.E.’s Federal Transport Authority said Monday it may bar the Riah from returning to the country if its investigation shows evidence of wrongdoing, Kumar said.

A U.A.E. government media official said last week that the Riah isn’t owned or operated by a U.A.E. company.

Africa times reporter
Wkimibi mabhulo
Cape town, South Africa