U.S. protests as Iranian navy seizes another tanker in heavily trafficked strait

Iranian forces Thursday seized an oil tanker bound for the United States in the Gulf of Oman in what the U.S. Navy said was the latest example of Tehran’s “continued harassment” of vessels operating in international waters.

Iranian naval forces forced the oil tanker Advantage Sweet into an Iranian port on Thursday while it was passing north of Muscat, Oman’s capital. Maritime tracking data said the tanker — sailing under the Marshall Islands flag — had most recently been in Kuwait and was heading to Houston, Texas.

The tanker issued a distress call during the seizure by Iranian Navy personnel, according to the Middle East-based U.S. 5th Fleet, which originally attributed the seizure to the paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Iran’s actions are contrary to international law and disruptive to regional security and stability,” the 5th Fleet said Thursday in a statement. “The Iranian government should immediately release the oil tanker.”

Iran has seized at least five commercial vessels operating in the Middle East in the past two years, the U.S. Navy said, calling Tehran’s actions “a threat to maritime security and the global economy.”

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said the seizure came after an “unknown ship collided with an Iranian vessel last night in the Persian Gulf, causing several Iranian crew members to go missing and get injured.” It did not identify the other ship involved in the alleged collision.

The Advantage Sweet is registered to the Shanghai, China-based company SPDBFL according to shipping records. SPDBFL is the leasing unit of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Manifest information from data firm Refinitiv showed the Advantage Sweet carried Kuwaiti crude oil for American energy firm Chevron Corp. of San Ramon, California, The Associated Press said. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The vessel’s manager, a Turkish firm called Advantage Tankers, said that the tanker was “being escorted by the Iranian navy to a port on the basis of an international dispute.” All the ship’s 24 crew members are Indian, AP reported.

Iran’s state-controlled press also reported Thursday that Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian had just finished up a two-day trip to Muscat for talks with top Omani officials. The focus of the talks was reportedly seeking to build on a 2016 regional accord to create an international transport and transit corridor in the heavily trafficked waters between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Nearly 20% of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman.

The Reuters news agency, citing the maritime security company Ambrey, said the tanker was boarded via helicopter and seized by Iranian forces off the coast of Bandar-e Jask in Iran.

Iran late last year freed two Greek-flagged tankers it had seized in the Gulf in the spring of 2022 in response to the confiscation of oil by the United States from an Iranian-flagged tanker off the Greek coast.

• This story is based in part on wire service reports.