DUBAI: A unit of state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said on Wednesday that one of its tankers struck by Iranian drones last week has leaked a small amount of fuel off the coast of Oman, underscoring the ecological risks stemming from the Iran war.
Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has made navigating the vital shipping corridor a precarious task. Hundreds of vessels remain trapped in the Gulf.
ADNOC Logistics & Services said it was monitoring the situation concerning its vessel, the M.V. Barakah, and was working “closely with the relevant authorities and specialist response teams.”
“The ADNOC Logistics & Services vessel Barakah remains at anchor off the coast of Oman after being impacted by two Iranian drones on May 4,” a company spokesperson said. “A small amount of what is understood to be bunker fuel was unfortunately released as a result of the incident.”
The spokesperson did not say how much fuel was believed to have leaked.
At the time of the attack, ADNOC L&S said no crew members were injured and the tanker was not carrying any cargo.
Oman’s Maritime Security Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aerial images from Copernicus’ Sentinel satellites on May 7 and 9 showed a white streak trailing from a vessel identified by TankerTrackers.com as the M.V. Barakah near Oman’s Musandam Peninsula.
“The white trail ... is definitely consistent with oil and is clearly coming out of the tanker,” said Louis Goddard, co-founder of consultancy Data Desk, which focuses on climate and commodities.
The slick was no longer visible in more recent imagery, Elizabeth C. Atwood, Earth observation senior scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, told Reuters.
Separately last week, satellite images showed a suspected oil spill covering dozens of square kilometers of sea near Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island. Iran’s top environmental official said on Tuesday it was likely caused by a tanker dumping waste water and not a leak from oil facilities.
Chinese oil tanker exits Strait of Hormuz, stops at Gulf of Oman, data shows
A Chinese supertanker carrying two million barrels of Iraqi crude sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday after being stranded in the Gulf for more than two months due to the US-Iran war, LSEG and Kpler ship-tracking data showed.
The Very Large Crude Carrier Yuan Hua Hu is now anchored off the Gulf of Oman, near where the US Navy has set up a blockade on Iranian vessels, LSEG data showed.
The crossing comes as US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to meet over the next two days, and after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi visited Beijing last week.
The voyage marks the third known passage by a Chinese oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz since the US-Israeli war with Iran began on February 28, based on ship-tracking data.
Iran has appeared to tighten its control over the strait in recent days, cutting deals with Iraq and Pakistan to ship oil and liquefied natural gas from the region, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
Other countries are exploring similar deals, sources said, in a move that could help entrench Tehran’s control of the waterway.
The Chinese VLCC is owned and operated by COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation’s Hainan unit and chartered by Unipec, the trading arm of Chinese state oil major Sinopec .
COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation and Sinopec did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The Yuan Hua Hu loaded nearly 2 million barrels of Basrah Medium crude at Iraq’s Basrah terminal in early March and has remained stranded inside the Gulf until now, according to the tracking data. It is bound for Asia.
Chinese-flagged VLCCs Cospearl Lake and He Rong Hai exited the Strait of Hormuz on April 11.
A vehicle carrier, Xiang Jiang Kou, also sailed through the strait in the past 12 hours and broadcast a message on its AIS public transponder saying “Chinese vessel and crew,” according to satellite analysis from data analytics specialists SynMax and separate data on the MarineTraffic platform. The vessel was operated by Singapore registered group Xin Yin Chuang Yuan 6 Tiajin.
