Oil tanker hijacked off Yemen, steers toward Somalia

ddelichon about 4 hours ago 61 commentsRead Article on yahoo.com

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bmitch3020•about 1 hour ago

Considering Saudi Arabia was bypassing the blockade of the Hormuz Strait by piping as much oil as they could to the Red Sea, this is going to cut that off (or significantly increase the insurance costs). Things just keep getting worse in the oil supply chain. It's a shame we didn't focus more on increasing the supply from renewable alternatives.

radu_floricica•about 3 hours ago

I still don't get how this works. My world image must be pretty off at this point if this kind of thing is possible. A tanker is big, expensive, and not exactly easy to misplace. And for a nation to be able to send this kind of expeditions it must be both dysfunctional enough to allow this, but competent enough to be able to mount it. And other countries allow it? Why? Again with the "expensive and hard to misplace".

toasty228•about 3 hours ago

All you need is a dude with a small boat, an rpg and some kind of short range radio really.

Aerroon•about 2 hours ago

Is an RPG enough? I feel like the crew of the oil tanker would want to defend themselves from armed pirates even if it might damage the ship some. And modern ships can be quite sturdy.

In 2020 a Venezuelan patrol boat (1500 tons) tried to stop an Arctic cruise ship (6000 tons). The patrol boat rammed the bow of the cruise ship and sank. The cruise ship received superficial damage to the bow.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52151951

toasty228•40 minutes ago

> Is an RPG enough?

Call their insurer and ask, I'm not in the business but I would imagine they're very risk averse

OutOfHere•about 3 hours ago

Many but not all tankers these days do have defensive equipment, e.g. jet sprays, but these probably can't stop too many boats, or if the tanker doesn't have such protection.

ceejayoz•about 3 hours ago

If I have a hose and the other guy has an RPG I’m probably not starting shit.

dgellow•about 3 hours ago

For the « how », you can watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Phillips_(film) to get an idea of the pirate logistics

dmitrygr•about 2 hours ago

All it takes is a world which has convinced itself that it is “time to be tolerant of all and punish none — all misbehavior is not a fault of the actor but instead the world at large is responsible”

Start dealing with pirates like they did in the 18th century, and watch how fast it ends. It would only take a few dozen publicly hung pirates to make the point.

mlyle•about 2 hours ago

Did that work in the 18th century? Hanging a few pirates eliminated piracy?

It's my understanding it was more about the loss of favorable basing and the reduction in Spanish shipments of treasure that caused the decline.

We've killed plenty of would-be pirates recently. Doesn't seem to have ended the problem.

delichon•about 2 hours ago

> Did that work in the 18th century?

It did in the early 19th century. Check out the first and second Barbary Wars. They were not permanent solutions but they had lasting effects. The real blow was the French conquest of Algeria after that.

tiagod•about 2 hours ago

Many ships carry very heavily armed private security. You're describing a world that does not exist.

hvb2•about 2 hours ago

I'm pretty sure that the typical HN reader doesn't understand what desperation is.

You can put a high wall at a border but desperate people will try to scale it. No matter how high you make it. People are willing to cross things like the Darien gap [0], they'll do a lot of things.

If you have nothing to lose, and I mean nothing, you might be willing to take the gamble.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap

doodlebugging•about 1 hour ago

Desperation isn't even required. There are plenty of people who would see something like this as the adventure of a lifetime and would volunteer to participate knowing that they would have a hell of a tale to tell their grandchildren. Those who engage in things that are extremely risky can find themselves and their actions glossed over and glorified as their exploits become more public knowledge so that even the criminal parts of their past do not taint their resume.

ryandrake•about 1 hour ago

What gets me is that we could have a desperation-free world if we wanted to, but no, instead, we set up the world so that billionaires can buy more super-yachts.

croes•about 2 hours ago

And still there are drug traffickers in countries with the death penalty on drug trafficking.

Those crimes correlate with poverty.

You want less crimes? Provide social security to get rid of the criminals out of desperation

senordevnyc•about 2 hours ago

You know that various navies have conducted operations that have killed many more Somali pirates than that, right? No idea what you’re quoting there, but it’s a bizarre caricature of the world we live in.

SanjayMehta•about 3 hours ago

It's very simple. "Pirates" use small arms and small boats.

The US navy uses helicopters and ship mounted canons.

Occasionally they double tap "drug smugglers" with missiles. Or sink inadequately armed "enemy" ships with a torpedo, followed by a second one after 19 minutes.

The difference is minor between piracy and war crimes: "δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν"

doodlebugging•about 1 hour ago

>"δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν"

That's all Greek to me so I had to translate.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Very appropriate. Thanks.

echelon_musk•about 2 hours ago

Trump was quoted in the last day as saying "We’re like pirates" in reference to the US Navy.

doodlebugging•about 1 hour ago

It wouldn't be surprising to find that Trump or some Trump-aligned group had contracted Somali pirates to commandeer tankers, guaranteeing them riches that will never be paid. The ships would find their way to friendly refineries where the oil can be laundered into a legitimate stream. Without even including his children, there are so many individuals associating with him who would have the pieces to make something like this happen.

fredoralive•about 3 hours ago

Oil tankers only have like 20-30 crew on board, you’re not going to need that many men with AK47s to take over. Navies do patrol piracy hotspots like Somalia, freedom of navigation is kinda important to world trade, but they can’t exactly be everywhere at once.

3eb7988a1663•about 2 hours ago

1. Steal oil tanker

2. ??

3. Profit

What is step 2? Normally, I would assume you try to minimize the incentives in buying stolen goods. In this market, nobody is above buying dubiously sourced oil, but what is the likely destination? Do the pirates patiently sit at the oil depot while the ship gets pumped dry, hoping the check clears and nobody shoots them on sight? Once you have an empty $100MM tanker, how do you unload that vessel?

Is it possible the Indian/Japanese/other-petroleum desperate government strike a deal with the pirates?

gpm•about 1 hour ago

Step 2. is (or has usually been) hold ship and crew hostage for ransom payment from the ships owner.

onemoresoop•about 1 hour ago

Either used internally or sold off on the black market at a huge discount maybe?

manquer•about 2 hours ago

Typically insurance companies pay ransoms for crew and cargo .

The economics of Somalian piracy is well documented. How the money is distributed, how they finance the operations and the hostage costs etc

explorigin•about 1 hour ago

2. Ransom

jeffbee•about 3 hours ago

The whole global just-in-time supply chain depended on at least the illusion of the freedom of the seas guaranteed by the United States, which the US unambiguously spoiled this year. Piracy never went away altogether but a multi-polar world where regional powers sanction piracy and provide the pirates with sophisticated weapons isn't going to underpin the same kind of global economy.

vrganj•about 2 hours ago

Related:

Trump on US Navy Seizing Ships:

> It’s a very profitable business. We’re like pirates.

https://xcancel.com/Acyn/status/2050368660360032561