chartered and owned by?
Ship with oil from Iran stormed at Gibraltar and with end destination Syria. Strange or they must have sailed around Cape Good Hope to fool everybody. But then stillâŚ
Owners: Russian Titan Shipping Lines Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Charterer: Same?
Someone really wants a war.
Yeah, but it makes innocent passage a joke. Not that Iran has any power to do a move like this.
Large tankers will slow steam around Good Hope as a cost saving measure. This avoids the cost of lightening, trans-Suez carriage and/or unloading and loading plus the cost of a Suez transit. Iâm not saying thatâs the case here but the media reports make it sound like thatâs the smoking gun.
Itâs lazy reporting of the story.
Marine Ex reports she is too large to pass through the Suez Canal.
AFAIK it standard practice for tankers this size to go around Cape of Good Hope. I donât recall seeing any big tankers lightering in Port Suez or thereabouts.
The Grace 1 is with 58.2m too wide for the Suez Canal (max 50m). With a deadweight of 330.000 ton she is over 32000 to thus a ULCC.
A VLCC trading crude oil from the Arabian Gulf (Ras Tanura) to Europe (Rotterdam) adds 74% extra miles to its voyage.
The Suez Canal Authority is handing out large toll cuts of up to 70% to stimulate he traffic through the Canal. Sounds rather panicky to me.
I made a couple of roundtrips between Philadelphia and Mena al Ahmadi, Kuwait. A roundtrip with 21 knots took about six and a half weeks nonstop, with about 5000 ton of bunkers in a couple of cargo tanks. We only slowed at Cape Town to store at sea fresh vegetables and fruit.
Once about Christmas the chief steward also stored fresh lobsters which was called âwhite fishâ on the invoices so that the office boys would not throw a fit. The lobsters swam around happily in the swimming pool until their hour of doom.
Going around as an alternative to lightering. I would think that if the Suez Canal route was cheaper they would have loaded in smaller tankers to begin with rather than the delay and expense of lightering.
Come to think about it if the point was to evade notice the Cape of Good Hope route would be a little better in which case the larger tanker would makes sense.
I added this a few minutes later, maybe you missed it. The market mechanism seems to be working!
Recently registered to RUSSIAN TITAN SHIPPING LINES - DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, flagged Panama.
Back from the dead! Welcome back.
what notice? there is nothing improper about Iran selling its oil to Syria. The legality of the seizure hinges on the refinery itâs supposedly headed for being owned by a company affected by EU sanctions on Iran. I have no idea if thatâs the case but I would guess that if they keep pulling this crap the refinery gets bought by Chinese or Russians or nationalized. This is empty harassment.
I was responding to speculation that might have been the case, saying âifâ that was the motive, not expressing an opinion one way or the other
Actually Iâm wrong. according to this the rationale actually has nothing to do with Iran, but Syria: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48865030 So I guess Syria gets invaded in its eastern extreme by the UK and US and doesnât get to access its own oil, and also they have a de facto blockade to government-owned enterprises! Itâs magically Not War
Picture taken 04. July 2019 off Gibraltar: http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=3024761
Still there 07. July: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:416354/mmsi:355271000/imo:9116412/vessel:GRACE_1/_:455be53c8a91ed1553580f52085e2b63
Not to be confused withâŚ
Iran has demanded that the UK and in particular, the Gibraltar Government, hand back the seized 1997-built VLCC âGrace 1â.
http://www.tankeroperator.com/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=10931
I wonder what is going on. It seems UK RN marines attacked the tanker in international waters and brought her to Gibraltar. Sounds like piracy! What on earth is going on?