A tanker hauling 1 million barrels of oil suffered an explosion while near Libya, its manager said Monday.
The Vilamoura is being towed to Greece, where damage will be assessed upon arrival. The blast caused water intake and the vessel’s engine room is flooded, a spokesperson for TMS Tankers said. Exactly what caused the explosion was unclear, they added.
In recent months, a series of mystery blasts hit oil tankers that had previously called at Russian ports. In the aftermath, shipowners began checking their ships’ hulls for mines with human divers and underwater vehicles. The Vilamoura has sailed to Russian oil terminals twice since April to pick up Kazakh oil, rather than Russian barrels.
The Vilamoura called at the Russian port of Ust-Luga in early April, where it loaded Kazakh-origin barrels, according to vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. It also called at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal near the Russian port of Novorossiysk in May, which also loads mostly Kazakh barrels.
There was no pollution from the blast and the crew are all safe, the spokesperson said.
Four more vessels have suffered explosions since the start of the year, according to Vanguard Tech, a maritime risk consultancy company. All had recently called at Russian ports, it added.
Ukraine has repeatedly sought to undermine Russia’s energy infrastructure since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of the country. In February, Ukrainian drones attacked the Caspian Pipeline Consortium link, through which 80% of Kazakh oil exports must pass.
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