JIDDA, Saudi Arabia: A hijacked Saudi-owned supertanker carrying more than $100 million worth of crude oil is approaching Somali waters where it is expected to anchor so that negotiations can begin on the release of the vessel and its 25 crew, United States navy officials said Tuesday.
The vessel, the 1,080-foot Sirius Star, is the largest ship ever seized by pirates — about the size of an aircraft carrier — and was captured off the coast of Kenya.
"At this time we believe the ship is just off the Somali coast," said Commander Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, stationed in Bahrain. "We don't have a specific indication that the ship is at anchor, but if it follows the pattern of previous attacks, that's what will happen and negotiations will begin between the pirates and the owners of ship."
Although the supertanker's exact location near the Somali coast is not clear, in the past most pirates have brought hijacked vessels to a stretch of coastline between Eyl in the north to the Harradera region to the south, Campbell said in a telephone interview.
The hijacking follows a string of increasingly brazen attacks by Somali pirates in recent months, but this appeared to be the first time that pirates have seized a loaded oil tanker.
Asked about a possible naval intervention, Campbell said: "Once the attack takes place, this is a hostage situation, and there are 25 crew members on board that ship. As with any hostage situation, there has to be concern for those individuals." Negotiations with pirates have often taken weeks or even months. A Ukrainian vessel hijacked in September, loaded with tanks and other heavy weapons, is still being held at Hobyo on the Somali coast, where the ship's crew remain captives, Campbell said.
The International Maritime Bureau, the global clearinghouse for piracy reporting, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has seen a sharp increase in maritime piracy this year.
Noel Choong, head of the piracy reporting center at the bureau, said Tuesday that 88 ships have been attacked in the Gulf of Aden alone this year. And 14 hijacked ships remain in the gulf — the heavily armed hijackers still on board, with the crews, cargo and the vessels themselves being held for ransom.
"They're still at sea and still negotiating," he said, noting that as ransom payoffs have risen, pirates have raised their demands. "They know the going rate."
Only a few years ago, the average ransom was in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now payments can range from $500,000 to $2 million.
The pirates' profits are set to reach a record $50 million in 2008, Somali officials say. Shipping firms are usually prepared to pay, because the sums are low compared with the value of the ships.
The attack on the Sirius Star took place despite an increased multinational naval presence off the Somali coast, where most of the recent hijackings have taken place. The pirates, often armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, travel in speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment.
The supertanker was hijacked more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, navy officials said. That is far to the south of most recent attacks, suggesting that the pirates may be expanding their range in an effort to avoid the multinational naval patrols now plying the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.
"I'm stunned by the range of it," said Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a news conference in Washington. The ship's distance from the coast was "the longest distance I've seen for any of these incidents," he said.
The vessel was headed for the United States when it was seized, Reuters reported.
Maritime experts recently have noticed a new development in the gulf — the pirates' use of "mother ships," large oceangoing trawlers carrying fleets of speedboats that are then deployed when a new prize is encountered.
"They launch these boats and they're like wild dogs," said Choong in Kuala Lumpur. "They attack the ship from the port, from starboard, from all points, shooting, scaring the captain, firing RPGs and forcing the ship to stop."
There are some countermeasures the merchant ships can use when approaching pirates are spotted. Fire-retardant foam or huge blasts of water can be sprayed from the ship to douse the would-be hijackers.
Once pirates get aboard, however, the ship is theirs, because crews on commercial vessels are rarely armed, according to Choong and other maritime experts. "They are not mentally or physically fit enough to handle weapons," he said.
Nor do many ship owners use armed contractors — seagoing mercenaries — to fight or ward off approaching pirates. Experts said crew safety and insurance liability were overriding concerns of captains and owners.
"We do not advocate this, having armed escorts on board," said Lee Yin Mui, assistant director of research at the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships at Sea. Known as ReCAAP, the 16-nation network is based in Singapore.
"Armed escorts could only escalate the situation," she said, "and perhaps trigger off heavy crossfire."
The Sirius Star is owned by Vela International, a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabia-based oil giant Saudi Aramco. Its 25-member crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland, and Saudi Arabia, the United States Navy said.
Robert F. Worth reported from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, Mark McDonald reported from Hong Kong and Alan Cowell contributed from Paris
