US Navy Seals seize mystery tanker loaded with Libyan oil By Borzou Daragahi in Cairo and Neil Hume in London US commandos have seized a mysterious North Korean-flagged tanker loaded with oil smuggled out of Libya last week by separatist rebels, the Pentagon said on Monday. A Pentagon press release said that no one was hurt when a team of Navy Seals, with helicopter support from the guided missile destroyer USS Roosevelt, boarded the Morning Glory before dawn on Monday, at around 2am GMT, at the request of the Libyan and Cypriot governments. The oil will be returned to Libyan authorities. “The Morning Glory is carrying a cargo of oil owned by the Libyan government National Oil Company,” Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a press release. “The ship and its cargo were illicitly obtained from the Libyan port of as-Sidra. The Morning Glory will be under way soon to a port in Libya with a team of sailors from the USS Stout...The sailors will be supervising the transit.” The mission was approved by President Barack Obama, Rear Admiral Kirby said. The political and commercial dealings surrounding the Morning Glory have all the elements of a spy thriller. Autonomy-seeking eastern rebels in Libya, led by the warlord Ibrahim Jadran, last week loaded the ship with about 250,000 barrels of crude oil and spirited it out to international waters in a move that precipitated the downfall of the fragile transitional government of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan. An international search for the vessel was launched after it evaded an attempted blockade by Libyan fishing boats equipped with makeshift guns. It was found off the southeast coast of Cyprus, after three men were arrested there on allegations of attempting to illegally purchase oil from the vessel, local media reported. The men were ordered to be released Saturday by a Larnaca judge, who ruled they were arrested in international waters outside Cypriot jurisdiction. The suspects were described as two Israelis and a Senegalese national. The Cyprus Daily reported that the Morning Glory had dropped anchor off Larnaca on Friday, just before the three suspects arrived in the city on a private jet, rented a boat and sailed out to the tanker, where they were observed meeting a representative from the larger ship. “Upon their return to the marina, police and the coastguard moved in to arrest them,” the newspaper reported. The ship’s provenance remains in question after North Korea last week disowned it. Rear Admiral Kirby described the Morning Glory as a “stateless vessel” seized in early March by three armed Libyans. Oil prices were not moved by the seizure. Brent, the international marker, fell 0.5 per cent to $107.69 a barrel. Libyan oil production fell by 140,000 barrels per day to 360,000 b/d in February, according to the International Energy Agency, because of the continued disruption to supplies across the country. Rebel militias currently control the major ports of Es Sider, Ras Lanuf and Zueitina, while in the west the 350,000 b/d El Sharara field was closed on Friday due guard protesting over unpaid wages. “The surprise seizure of the tanker by the US Navy will be a blow to the federalists [the rebels], as they lose the expected revenue from that sale and are now unlikely to be able to manage any future sales,” said Richard Mallinson, geopolitical analyst at Energy Aspects, a consultancy. “This will change the balance between the government and rebels, but does not make a quick resolution of the issues at the eastern terminals more likely.”
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 11:51:35 +0000
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