An oil tanker carrying the Marshall Islands exploded off Libya on June 27, while carrying about 1 million barrels of crude oil. Although no casualties or oil leaks were recorded, the explosion flooded the engine room and the ship drifted, said a representative of the TMS Tankers operations company.
The ship, called Vilamoura, departed from Libya's Zuetina port and was en route to Gibraltar when it crashed. What is noteworthy is that the ship has previously visited two major oil ports related to Russia: Ust-Luga (May) and the port of Caspian pipeline Consortium near Novorossiysk (May), which mainly exports oil from Kazakhstan.
This is not the first accident. Vilamoura is the fifth ship to explode this year after docking at a Russian oil port. This mystery series of incidents is causing confusion in international shipping and raising concerns about a deliberate sabotage campaign.
According to maritime risk consultancy Vanguard Tech, all the affected vessels had in common that they had stopped by a Russian oil port before the accident. In this situation, some ship owners have begun letting divers check the ship's body and use underwater control equipment to find mines or pre-implemented detonators.
The incidents come as the West is stepping up patrols of its dark-edge fleet tankers that do not comply with Western insurance to avoid sanctions against Russia.
The EU and the US have accused Russia and its trading partners of using the fleet to circumvent the embargo. Moscow has denied the allegations, calling them an illegal act to stifle the country's shipping sector.
Notably, Ukraine is said to have repeatedly attacked Russia's energy infrastructure since the conflict escalated.
In February, Ukrainian UAVs hit the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station in southern Russia, also part of the Caspian pipeline pipeline pipeline pipeline consortium - a strategic export route that accounts for 80% of Kazakhstan's crude oil production to the world.
The Vilamoura, built in 2011, has a displacement of nearly 159,000 tons. According to data from VesselFinder, the ship is being towed to Greece to assess the extent of damage.
The incident raises a series of questions about whether this is a random accident or a sign of a silent war at sea? Who is behind? And are international shipping routes still safe from this new wave of sabotage?
