Vanishing tanker carrying Iraqi oil spotted near US coast
Iran Press TV
Tue Sep 2, 2014 9:8AM GMT
An oil tanker loaded with approximately USD 100 million worth of disputed crude from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region has been spotted near the US coast several days after vanishing.
Reports said the tanker had been anchored in the Galveston Offshore Lightering Area near Texas on Monday, with US Coast Guard saying the vessel, dubbed the United Kalavrvta, had not yet unloaded its cargo.
On August 28, the US Coast Guard said its AIS ship tracking system could not locate the position of the United Kalavrvta tanker carrying one million barrels of Iraqi crude oil.
Kurdish oil tankers switch off their electronic transponders to avoid detection.
The United Kalavrvta tanker was to unload its cargo at sea off Texas. The tanker had left the Turkish port of Ceyhan in June and anchored in an area off the US port of Galveston in late July.
In June, Iraq’s central government filed a lawsuit in a US court, calling for an order to seize the vessel for carrying what Baghdad deems as illegal crude. The US court first ordered that the Kurdish vessel be seized, but it later said the order could not be enforced due to what it claimed to be a “lack of jurisdiction.”
Baghdad says it has the sole right to export the Iraqi crude, but the Kurds say they are entitled to market the resources of their own region. The central government in Baghdad has repeatedly censured Kurdistan’s Regional Government (KRG) for exporting illegal crude to neighboring Turkey.
Around a week ago, another tanker, known as Kamari, which was partially full of Iraqi oil, disappeared from satellite tracking screens north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and reappeared empty near Israel a few days later.
In July, the United Emblem tanker also offloaded part of its cargo of Kurdish crude onto another ship in the South China Sea.
MKA/HSN/HJL
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