Vietnamese Tanker Feared Hijacked After Departing Singapore

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday October 8, 2014

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB)'s Piracy Reporting Centre says it fears that a Vietnamese-flagged tanker may have been hijacked after leaving Singapore, Channel NewsAsia reports.

The MT Sunrise 689 tanker, whose registered owner is Haiphong Sea Product, has been missing since Thursday when it set sail from Singapore, and was originally due to arrive in Vietnam on Sunday.

The vessel is reported to have had 18 crew on board and been carrying 5,226 tons of oil.

"The fate of the crew and vessel is unknown," said IMB's Kuala Lumpur-based piracy watchdog, with ships in the region urged to keep a lookout for the missing tanker and report its whereabouts if seen.

Vietnamese authorities are said to have launched a search operation for the vessel and are appealing to regional counterparts in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore to assist.

Online fleet intelligence and information service VesselsValue.com assesses the 2012-built clean product tanker to be worth $9.1 million, with a scrap value of $1.3 million.

The incident follows a warning by IMB earlier in the year that the number of pirate attacks on tankers in Southeast Asia is set to rise.

In July, bunker pirates hijacked a Honduran-flagged MGO tanker off Malaysia.