South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today (25 November) that the crew on a South Korean-owned oil tanker has been released unhurt after the vessel was hijacked on 24 November.
The 5,700 DWT products tanker, B. Ocean, owned by SK Shipping, was manned by two South Koreans and 17 Indonesians when it lost contact around 7 am South Korean time on 24 November. At the time, B. Ocean was 200 nautical miles south of Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
The South Koreans were the captain and chief engineer of B. Ocean. The crew resumed contact with SK Shipping at 11.15 am South Korean time today, revealing that pirates stole the petroleum cargo on the tanker and damaged the tanker’s equipment, before releasing the seafarers. B. Ocean expects to return to Abidjan.
It is the second time that the ship was hijacked, after an earlier incident in the same area in January. In the earlier case, the pirates also stole the tanker’s cargo before escaping, without hurting the seafarers.
The International Maritime Bureau’s latest report, in October, said that global piracy has hit a 30-year low, while incidents in the Gulf of Guinea, once regarded as a piracy hotbed, have declined.
In the first nine months of 2022, there were 90 piracy incidents worldwide, the lowest since 1992, while attacks in the Gulf of Guinea halved to 13, compared with 27 in the same period last year.
Martina Li
Asia Correspondent
