UKMTO issued a time-late report on 26 October of a strike on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on 23 October as reports spread of a tanker on fire off Basra, Iraq, in the north of the Arabian Gulf.
The UKMTO report said an outbound tanker was struck by an unknown projectile at 0839 on 23 October and that the crew were reported safe. The delayed report comes after UKMTO said earlier this month that it was struggling with shipowners’ refusal to report incidents to the voluntary information sharing centre. The majority of incidents were not being reported to UKMTO, it said.
Maritime security company Orbital Risk Intelligence reported that a vessel had been attacked off Basra, Iraq on 26 October and was on fire. A NASA satellite confirmed heat emitting from the area at 0926 hrs.
While attacks off Iraq have been less common than those in the Strait of Hormuz since the Middle East conflict began, Iran has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to target vessels in the far north of the Arabian Gulf
Over the weekend, Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) updated its non-compliance list with two additional vessels and corrected an earlier error. The list now contains 123 vessels.
Senegal Prosperity, a Liberian-flagged VLCC owned by Sinokor has been added to the list in position 103, a spot previously occupied by a duplication of entry 102, Sinokor’s Angola Prosperity.
The new addition to the list was attacked on 31 August while exiting the Strait of Hormuz; three projectiles struck the vessel causing damage to the engine room and ballast tanks.
The other addition to the PGSA blacklist was Sea Soar, a Panama-flagged LPG tanker owned by Hong Kong-based single ship company Naviboost. AIS tracking shows the vessel is active in the Middle East.