Pirates on Monday attacked and took control of Saudi Aramco's new oil supertanker Sirius Star off the coast of Kenya, a spokesman for the US Navy 5th fleet said. It was being taken to the pirate haven of Eyl, in northern Somalia, the spokesman said. Northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, where Eyl is located, was on the lookout for the ship. Chaos onshore in Somalia, where Islamist forces are fighting a Western-backed government, has spawned a wave of piracy. Shipowners have paid out millions of dollars in ransoms. The tanker, which is owned by Saudi Aramco, came under attack more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya. The ship, three times the size of an aircraft carrier, carried 25 crew members from Croatia, Great Britain, Phillippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia, the spokesman said. The $130-150 million, 318,000 tonnes vessel, launched in March, is flagged in Liberia and operated by Vela International, an Aramco subsidiary. It had been heading for the United States via the Cape of Good Hope. It holds as much as two million barrels of oil – more than one quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily exports. The hijacking lifted global oil prices over $1 to more than $58 a barrel, although they later lost some gains. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said in Washington he was “stunned” by the reach of the Somali pirates “I'm stunned by the range of it, less so than I am the size,” he said. That is the farthest out at sea that a ship has been seized in the latest surge of piracies, he said. The pirates, Mullen said, are “very good at what they do. They're very well armed. Tactically, they are very good... And so, once they get to a point where they can board, it becomes very difficult to get them off, because, clearly, now they hold hostages.” He declined to say if the US navy was considering taking action to rescue the tanker, The Sirius Star is a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), which is unable to dock at many existing ports, requiring deep-water terminals, or facilities to discharge cargoes onto other small tankers at sea. Somali pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues, using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. The International Maritime Bureau, a piracy watchdog, said there had been 92 pirate attacks off Somalia this year and 36 of the ships had been hijacked. Fourteen ships are still controlled by pirates and 243 crew members are being held. The hijacks have driven up shipping insurance premiums and pushed some vessels to take longer routes to bypass the Suez Canal – potentially increasing the cost of traded goods. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said a 20,000-ton ship carrying unidentified chemicals was seized Saturday night. The crew of the Japanese-owned Chemstar Venus consisted of five South Koreans and 18 Filipinos, the statement said. On Sunday, Somali pirates released an earlier-seized cargo vessel with 18 Indian crew members after being paid a ransom, Indian officials said. In a thwarted attack Saturday, Russia's navy said its guided-missile frigate Neustrashimy, or Intrepid, was guarding three cargo ships when it received a distress signal. Several speedboats loaded with pirates approached the Saudi ship, Rabih, but were repelled after the Russians sent a helicopter, said a Russian navy spokesman.
