By Jana Choukeir and Ahmed Elimam
DUBAI (Reuters) -An oil tanker involved in a dispute between the U.S. and Iran was boarded by armed individuals east of Oman and appeared to be changing course towards Iranian waters, according to a British maritime security firm and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) authority.
The security firm Ambrey said the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker’s AIS tracking system was turned off as it headed in the direction of the Iranian port of Bandar e-Jask at the time it made the report.
The ship, which loaded in the Iraqi port of Basra, and was heading to Aliaga in western Turkey, tracking data from LSEG showed.
While Ambrey did not name the vessel, shipping tracking service TankerTrackers said the vessel was the St Nikolas, which in 2023 had been seized by the United States in a sanctions enforcement operation under a different name, Suez Rajan.
The United States said at the time that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had been trying to send Iranian oil to China, in violation of U.S. sanctions.
UKMTO said earlier on Thursday it had received a report that a vessel located around 50 nautical miles east of Oman’s coast was boarded by four to five armed persons.
The armed intruders were reported to be wearing military style black uniforms and black masks.
UKMTO said the chief security officer reported the vessel had altered course towards Iranian territorial waters and that communication with the tanker had been lost.
The UK authority, which provides maritime security information, said it was unable to make further contact with the vessel and authorities were still investigating the incident.
The United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet did not immediately respond to a request for comment or further information.
The Suez Rajan was carrying more than 980,000 barrels of contraband Iranian crude oil last year when it was seized and the oil confiscated in the U.S. sanctions enforcement operation.
It was unable to unload the Iranian crude for nearly two and half months over fears of secondary sanctions on vessels used to unload it. It was renamed the St Nikolas after unloading the cargoes.
While Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have since October attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea to show support for Hamas Islamists battling the Israeli offensive in Gaza, their incidents had been concentrated on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, to the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula.
Thursday’s incident is located closer to the Strait of Hormuz, between Oman and Iran.
(Reporting by Jana Choukeir, Ahmed Elimam and Parisa Hafezi; Additional reporting by Andrew Mills; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Ros Russell)
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