Iran appears to have secretly released a Greece-owned oil tanker that it had seized two years ago, data from TankerTrackers.com, Inc showed as tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States flare up again amidst deadly suppression of mass protests in Iran.
Iran captured the tanker St Nikolas in January 2024 in the Gulf of Oman, in retribution for the U.S. seizure of 1 million barrels of Iranian oil the previous year. At the time of the seizure, the vessel was traveling to the Turkish port of Aliaga after loading crude from the Iraqi Basrah Oil Terminal.
Now the St Nikolas was last seen north of the Sohar anchorage off the coast of Oman, TankerTrackers.com said this week.
The vessel’s manager is Greece-based Empire Navigation, which didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg’s queries on the tanker’s status.
The apparent release of the tanker that spent two years to the day in captivity comes as tensions between the United States and Iran are boiling over again.
Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the United States is considering “very strong options” in Iran in response to the Iranian regime’s crackdown on the biggest protests in the Islamic Republic in more than a decade.
President Trump also said that Iran now wants to negotiate after the U.S. President’s threat to strike the country over the killing of protesters.
More than 500 people are estimated to have been killed and thousands arrested by Iranian forces in the protests that have escalated in recent days.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, an elite military force, has warned the U.S., “Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all U.S. bases and ships will be our legitimate target.”
Late on Monday, President Trump said that “Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America.”
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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