UAE coast guard evacuates 24 people from oil tanker crash
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 17, (AP): The Emirati national guard said it evacuated 24 people from an oil tanker Tuesday after a collision between two ships just east of the world's most critical oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. The crude oil tanker, ADALYNN, was bound for Egypt's Suez Canal when the crash in the Gulf of Oman happened.
NASA FIRMS satellite data showed heat signatures in the area early morning. The United Arab Emirates national guard said it deployed its coast guard's search and rescue boats to the site, 24 nautical miles off the country's coast, and that the crew was evacuated to the port of Khor Fakkan.
British maritime security firm Ambrey had earlier said that the incident was not security-related, as the days-long conflict between Israel and Iran, which is just across the Strait of Hormuz from neighboring Oman, continued to unfold.
The Strait is the strategic maritime entryway to the Persian Gulf and sees about a fifth of the world's oil pass through it, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
In 2024, an average of 20 million barrels of oil traveled through it daily. After Israel launched airstrikes against Iran on June 13, worry mounted over whether the Islamic Republic might block the waterway. Maritime ship experts say shipowners are increasingly wary of using the waterway, with some ships having tightened security and others canceling routes there.
As the Israel-Iran warfare intensified over the weekend, hundreds of ships in the strait saw spotty navigation signals and had to rely more on radar, though it wasn't immediately clear what caused Tuesday's incident.
The Financial Times reported Friday that the world's largest publicly listed oil tanker company, Frontline, said it would turn down new contracts to sail into the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz after the Israel-Iran conflict broke out.
Meanwhile, oil prices continued to climb as U.S. futures were lower Tuesday morning after Israel's military issued an evacuation warning to 330,000 people in Iran's capital, Tehran. Tuesday's rescue came less than two weeks after the UAE national guard airlifted an injured man from an oil tanker to an Emirati hospital.
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