Tag: Oman

Owners of seized vessel say pirates yet to establish any contact Owners of the chemical tanker that was hijacked in Oman are still clueless about the whereabouts and condition of the vessel and its crew more than a day after Somali pirates seized the MT Fairchem Bogey off the port of Salalah. According to officials of the Anglo-Eastern Ship Management, the pirates have yet to establish contact as of last night."We expect the pirates to make the first contact to us till they reach the Somalia coast where they will be anchored on their arrival from Salalah port," a ship managing firm official said.There are 21 crew members on board MT Fairchem Bogey. All are Indians. The ship was carrying over 20,000 tonnes of methanol on Saturday and was scheduled to set sail from the Salalah port on Sunday.In touchThe ship's managers have been in touch with various maritime authorities, while awaiting further contact from the vessel. An official of India's Directorate General of Shipping (DGS) said the tanker was heading towards the Somalian coast."We do not know the current location of the ship. We have also not got fresh feedback from the company managing the ship," the DGS official ...

It was hijacked while anchored in Salalah port Somali pirates hijacked a chemical-oil tanker with 21 Indian sailors on board on Saturday from near an Omani port, although the exact location was unconfirmed.India's Directorate General of Shipping said the Fairchem Bogey, managed by Mumbai-based Anglo-Eastern Ship Management, was hijacked while anchored in Salalah port. A Salalah-based shipping source said the vessel was being loaded with methanol when it was seized.The port's operator, APM Terminals, however, said pirates boarded the vessel while it was two miles off the coast of Oman, awaiting a berth, and comandeered it towards Somalia.Andrew Mwangura, shipping editor of The Somalia Report, who is based in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa told Reuters the position of the hijacking showed the ship was inside Oman's territorial waters."It was captured six nautical miles south of Salalah so it is definitely inside Oman," he said, adding that a country's territorial waters usually stretch out 12 miles into the sea."If it is Somali pirates, it means they have a mother ship they are operating with. The high season for piracy has just started."The end of the southwest monsoon winds in August marks the end of very turbulent high seas In ...

70,000 ship movements every year through the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden Oman is becoming a key hub for the private maritime security market as merchant shipping firms look for ways to combat the pirate scourge that threatens approximately 70,000 ship movements every year through the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.The Somali-based pirates have moved further eastwards in search of victims as international naval forces organised safe corridors of transit along the East African coastline and Gulf of Aden.Oman now finds itself on the front line in this modern re-enactment of an ancient mariners' problem, as newly formed private security firms begin to base themselves in ports adjoining the Indian Ocean.One such firm, Protection Vessels International (PVI), initially based themselves in Salalah, before moving to Muscat as the scope of the challenge has increased every year.Speaking in an exclusive interview with Muscat Daily, Simon Osborne, Business Development Director at PVI, said that they first arrived in Oman in 2008. "We are the largest maritime security company and started down in Salalah, which was then where the main threat was.""As the pirates expanded their operations so did we, as our customers and clients wanted protection further afield. So we ...