Iran dismisses Western reports about incident for oil shipment near Singapore
The Iranian Oil Ministry has dismissed Western media reports about a maritime incident for an Iran-owned crude oil shipment near Singapore.
Media reports said early on Friday that two large oil tankers were on fire after a collision near Singapore, with news agencies of Reuters and Bloomberg claiming that one of the vessels had been carrying some two million oil barrels from Iran to China.
“None of the damaged tankers were related to Iran,” the Oil Ministry said in a statement.
“Also, the crude oil cargo of neither of the two damaged tankers belongs to Iran,” it added.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said it was alerted in the early morning local time on July 19 to a fire onboard both a Singapore-flagged tanker, Hafnia Nile, and a São Tomé and Príncipe-flagged tanker, Ceres I, about 55 kilometers northeast of Pedra Branca within Singapore’s Maritime Search and Rescue Region.
Hafnia Nile had knocked into the starboard bow of Ceres I in the international waters of the Riau archipelago on Friday morning, according to TankerTrackers.com.
Singaporean authorities said they had dispatched a helicopter to assist with evacuating the crews.
There were a total of 22 crew onboard Hafnia Nile and 40 crew onboard Ceres I, and all the crew are accounted for, Singapore’s MPA said.
The reports said navigation in the area had not been affected but authorities were on alert to assist in case of oil spills.
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