Iran Seizes a Tanker and Suffers New Problem - What's Hilarious Is Who That Cargo Belongs To

Iran took an action on Friday that had a lot of people scratching their heads because it didn't make a lot of sense.

They announced that they had seized a tanker.

“During a special operation, naval commandos of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army detained the violating oil tanker Ocean Koi,” state television reported, saying the vessel was “attempting to disrupt oil exports and the interests of the Iranian nation.” The tanker appears to be managed by a Chinese company, according to a shipping database.

Wow, that sounds pretty bold. 

Except for one thing. It's a tanker, sanctioned by the U.S., carrying Iranian oil. Tehran said the tanker was "exploiting regional conditions." Their state media said the tanker had been turned over to judicial authorities. 

This may be one of the funniest things the Iranians have done so far. So it appears that either they seized a tanker shipping their own oil in the wake of the U.S. attacks on them on Thursday, to appear tough and make it look like they were doing something. Or someone running their oil even believed he could get over on the regime by moving stuff against what Iranian leadership wanted. Take your pick. Either way, it's hilarious. And are they stepping on the Chinese in the process, since it's reportedly "Chinese-managed"? They made what would appear to be a big boo-boo earlier in the week, firing on a Chinese tanker, which couldn't have made the Chinese happy.

 

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READ MORE: Iran Attacks Our Ships, and U.S. Makes the Regime Regret It

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Then, too, there was another report that may indicate a big problem for the Iranian regime.

Satellites have detected a massive oil spill spreading across a vast area of the Persian Gulf around Iran's Kharg Island.

Synthetic aperture radar imagery shows a large surface slick emanating from the waters around Kharg Island, Iran's primary crude oil export terminal responsible for roughly 90% of the country's oil exports.

At the time of detection, multiple tankers were simultaneously loading at the Kharg Island terminal.

It is not yet clear whether the spill originated from a loading operation, a vessel, subsea infrastructure, or the terminal itself.

More details on the problem:

Oil is oozing through the ocean near Kharg Island in the Strait of Hormuz, according to satellite photos released Friday, raising questions about the state of Iran’s central energy production hub located there.

Between May 6 and 8, the spill spread to an area of 20 square miles inside the channel, amounting to as much as 3,000 lost barrels of oil, reps for Orbital EOS, a global oil spill monitoring service told The New York Times.

One expert speculated there may have been an issue as the regime tries to use floating storage to not shut down or damaging their system. 

“Large volumes of crude [oil] stored in tankers are increasing spill risks. A possible rupture in the old undersea pipeline to Abuzar field is another source,” suggested Dalga Khatinoglu, who spoke as an Iranian energy expert to the Times. [....]

Nima Shokri, a professor of environmental engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology, also told the Times that “the naval blockade has likely pushed Iran’s oil system into a dangerous state.”

Others speculated the regime might be releasing oil into the Gulf to avoid having to shut down the system. If that's true, they are really at the point of being up a creek without a paddle.