British security firm Ambrey says the incident involving an oil tanker was not security related.
Two oil tankers have collided in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil checkpoint just off the coast of Iran.
British maritime security monitor Ambrey said that the collision on Tuesday of the Adalynn and the Front Eagle is “not security-related,” despite the proximity of the accident to the war raging between Israel and Iran and concerns over its impact on navigation.
Shipping company Frontline said a fire was extinguished on the Front Eagle tanker, 15 nautical miles (28km) off the UAE’s Gulf of Oman coast. It added that no pollution had been detected.
The United Arab Emirates coastguard said it had evacuated 24 people from the Adalynn oil tanker.
The Front Eagle was loaded with 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil and was en route to Zhoushan in China, according to monitoring service TankerTrackers.com.
The Adalynn, a Suezmax-class tanker owned by India-based Global Shipping Holding Ltd, had no cargo and was sailing towards the Suez Canal in Egypt, the monitoring service said.
The Hormuz Strait is the strategic maritime entryway to the Gulf, and about a fifth of the world’s oil passes through it, according to the United States Energy Information Administration.
The multinational, US-led Combined Maritime Force’s JMIC information centre said in an advisory this week that it had received reports of electronic interference stemming from the vicinity of Iran’s Port of Bandar Abbas.
Tehran has in the past threatened to close the strait to traffic in retaliation for Western pressure. Since the start of the open hostilities with Israel, Iranian officials have reiterated the possibility.
A wave of attacks on ships in the area has been attributed to Iran since 2019, following President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Such a move would affect global energy markets, but would likely draw a swift response from the US. Tehran is believed to be keen to avoid direct confrontation with the US due to its limited military capacity.
Iran has not commented on the collision or the earlier reports of electronic interference.
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