Busy Holidays

In the period of two weeks starting on 18/19th December 2009, when Yemeni freighter the Al-Mahmoudia 2 was taken, shortly after it left Aden, until the hijacking of the car-transport the MV Asian Glory on the night of 1st/2nd

January 2010, no less than five merchant ships were hijacked in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

It is clear that the statements made by Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations for the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet in August 2009, that, “The Gulf of Aden is safer for shipping than it was a year ago,” and that, “The maritime environment is much more peaceful because of the international cooperation,” have not been justified by events.

Piracy

A Criminal Business

In the “City of God,” St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. The Emperor angrily demanded of him, “How dare you molest the seas?” To which the pirate replied, “How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great navy, molest the world and are called an emperor.” St. Augustine thought the pirate’s answer was “elegant and excellent.”

We have yet to hear such an elegant and excellent statement from the modern Somali pirates, although it could be argued that the initial impetus for modern Somali piracy was a reaction against the perceived theft of vast stocks of Somali fish by foreign trawlers.  However, piracy off Somalia has long moved from being reaction to foreign fishing, to become a multi-million dollar criminal enterprise.

The hijacking of the 24,637 dwt, Singapore-flagged,container ship Kota Wajar was hijacked on the 15th October in the Indian Ocean, at  Lat. 01.33′S Long 54.52′E, marking the effective start of the 2009/2010 Pirate Season, the monsoon period, which makes the seas too high for boarding from a small boat having ended.

It is now possible to see more clearly how the Somali pirates’ current campaign is developing.  Unfortunately our earlier predictions have been proved correct; the remarkable feature of the current season is the way in which pirate attacks have taken place so far from the Somali coast.  There have been a cluster of attacks to the north east of the Seychelles, up to a thousand nautical miles east of Somalia, and there have also been attacks in a second area, far to the south of Somalia, almost as far as Madagascar, in the northern part of the Mozambique Channel. 

The MV Maran Centaurus

The ransoming of the MV Maran Centaurus on the 18th January 2010 has seen a new record set for the award paid to Somali pirates for the release of a ship and its crew. The ease with which this vessel was hijacked, and the relative lack of interest shown by the world’s media in its hijacking, illustrates with force the extent to which the taking of a super-tanker on the high seas has become almost a normal event, in contrast to the interest that was generated only a year ago by the hijacking of the Sirius Star.

On the 29th November 2009 the Greek-flagged VLCC was boarded by Somali pirates 570 nautical miles NE of the Seychelles. This huge 299,900 dwt vessel, 1,090 foot long (330 metres), has 28 crew.

The Maran Centaurus left Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait en route for the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, in the Gulf of Mexico, the United States. On the evening of the 24th November it headed into the Straits of Homuz, passing the United Arab Emirates and less than five days later it was hijacked. On board the Maran Centaurus carried nearly two million barrels of crude oil, worth at then current market price of about $75 a barrel, over US$150 million. By the 2nd December the tanker was anchored 30 nautical miles south of Hobyo, Somalia and it remained on the Somali coast until it was released 47 days later, on the 18th January 2010.