It was a quiet day in January, and many oil traders were still on holiday, when ...
SINGAPORE - It was a quiet day in January, and many oil traders were still on holiday, when two sources in the industry called to alert me to something unusual - a supertanker that had gone off radar for two weeks appeared off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and was pumping out fuel oil to two smaller vessels.
My first task was to identify and monitor the vessels involved. I called up satellite data offered by Refinitiv, a sister company of Thomson Reuters, that show the movements of ships around the world. The satellite data showed the supertanker re-appearing in waters near Iran’s port of Bandar Assaluyeh. The data also includes the ship’s draught - how deep a vessel sits in water - and it was near maximum at the time, indicating its cargo tanks were full.
Reuters also mobilized journalists in Baghdad and Tripoli in Libya to talk directly to ship managers, port officials and shipping agents about the transactions.The Grace 1, a Panamanian-flagged tanker, is managed by Singapore-based shipping services firm IShips Management Pte Ltd, according to shipping data. IShips did not respond to several requests for comment via email or phone.
Two other Iraqi oil industry sources with direct knowledge of Basra port and oil industry operations also told Rasheed the document was forged. Major oil traders form a small group and soon talk was spreading that Reuters was investigating the Grace 1 transactions.
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