\n Sanctioned oil tanker pursued by US tracked – after ‘Russian flag painted on hull’\n <\/p>\n
Tracking data has revealed the location of a sanctioned crude oil tanker pursued by the US and reportedly escorted by the Russian navy.<\/p>\n
The US Coast Guard previously tried to board the Bella 1 tanker off the coast of Venezuela in December and, as we reported at 7.43, the Wall Street Journal quotes an American official as saying a Russian submarine has been escorting the vessel.<\/p>\n
After it left the Caribbean, the ship’s name was changed from Bella 1 to\u00a0Marinera, and\u00a0it adopted the Russian flag, according to AI maritime analytics firm Windward. \u202f<\/p>\n
Windward also reported the tanker painted a Russian flag on its hull to avoid\u00a0capture by the US Coast Guard in the Atlantic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Under international law, vessels flying a country’s flag are under the protection of that nation.<\/p>\n
The tanker appears to have sailed with a Guianan flag\u00a0before this change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Marinera is now within Iceland’s exclusive economic zone as of around 7am this morning, according to maritime\u00a0intelligence firm Marine Traffic, citing satellite data.<\/p>\n
Where was the tanker before Venezuela?<\/b><\/p>\n
The tanker loaded crude oil at KhargIsland in Iran\u00a0in early\u00a0September, according\u00a0to maritime intelligence firm Kpler, before crossing the Atlantic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It switched off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) in the Strait of Hormuz prior to loading, a common\u00a0tactic observed among\u00a0vessels loading\u00a0sanctioned Iranian crude\u00a0oil.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The vessel was then tracked from Iran, from where it apparently travelled with no load towards Venezuela.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was seen on 17 December, then it appeared to\u00a0retreat\u00a0after the US announced it was actively pursuing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On 21 December, the tanker made 39 distress calls. The\u00a0first distress call was made at\u202f12.26 and the last at 17.13.<\/p>\n
It was\u00a0just over 500km (311 miles) from the coast of Antigua and Barbuda when it sent these calls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since\u00a0its\u00a0retreat from the Caribbean Sea,\u00a0it has travelled towards the North Atlantic and was seen on tracking on 3 January just over 1,000km (621 miles) from the Irish coast.<\/p>\n
Today, it’s just over 300km (186 miles) from Iceland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tanker was sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control\u202f(OFAC)\u202fin June 2024 for its involvement in Iranian oil transport.<\/p>\n
It is registered to a company based in Turkey, Louis Marine Shipholding ENT, which is also sanctioned.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sanctioned oil tanker pursued by US tracked – after ‘Russian flag painted on hull’ Tracking data has revealed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,19,17,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-272095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115853639367683799","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}