Image: Helios Ray Ship:
Reuters
A vessel under the Bahamas, the MV HELIOS RAY, was hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) and a maritime security company said on Friday.
The cause of the explosion is not clear.
“Investigations are underway. Ship and crew are safe,” the UKMTO advises, advising ships in the area to exercise caution.
The incident took place at 2040 GMT, it said, but did not provide details of a possible cause.
Maritime security company Dryad Global said the MV HELIOS RAY was a car transporter owned by Helios Ray Ltd, an Israeli company registered in the Isle of Man. The ship was en route to Singapore from Dammam in Saudi Arabia.
A spokesman for the Israeli Transport Ministry said it had no information about an Israeli ship that had hit the Gulf.
A company called Helios Ray Ltd was founded in the Isle of Man. The ship was managed by Stamco Ship Management, Refinitiv’s ship tracking data showed. Stamco Ship Management declined to comment when Reuters reached out by phone.
“While details of the incident remain unclear, it remains a realistic possibility that the event was the result of asymmetric activity by Iranian military,” Dryad said in a report on the incident.
Data from Refinitiv shows that the ship has set Dubai as its current destination.
The Bahrain-based United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet said it was aware of the incident and was monitoring the situation.
Tensions in the Gulf region have risen since the United States re-imposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 after then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington from the 2015 nuclear deal with the superpowers in Tehran.
Washington has blamed Iran for a number of attacks on shipping in strategic Gulf waters, including on four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, in May 2019. Iran distanced itself from those attacks.
In early January, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps seized a South Korean-flagged tanker in the Gulf waters and detained its crew amid tensions between Tehran and US ally Seoul over Iranian funds frozen in South Korean banks as a result of US sanctions.
In 2018, 21 million barrels of oil per day flowed through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, which is equivalent to about 21% of the global demand for petroleum liquids at the time, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.