‘Flag-hopping’ oil tanker registered in Guyana missing

Aug 11, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – According to internationally recognised shipping industry news agency Lloyd’s List, Guyana has become the most recent addition for registries utilised by flag-hopping tankers engaged in sanctioned Venezuelan and Iranian oil trades.
Flag-hopping is the repeated changing of registries by ship owners, often alongside the formation of different companies and new names. It is a cat-and-mouse game used by tanker owners to evade regulatory scrutiny and is listed by the US as a key deceptive shipping practice.
An aframax tanker named Winsome built in 2000 had moved to the Guyana registry earlier last month. According to the news agency, the tanker, which has changed names four times and has been reflagged three times in the past 13 months, is the second of 160 vessels shipping US-sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran without penalty to use Guyana as its registry of choice.
The Winsome has been missing for more than a month after loading a $30M cargo of crude oil in Oman bound for China. It had issued an AIS signal on July 5 shortly after it set out on its voyage from Sohar, Oman, and then stopped transmitting, according to shipping industry website TradeWinds. The news site reported that the vessel indicated it was heading east at the time of its last transmission, but did not give a destination. While it is not unusual for tankers in the region to switch off their AIS, the vessel does not appear to have sailed on to China. Attempts by TradeWinds to contact the tanker by satellite telephone were unsuccessful.
A company called Orbit Petrochemicals and the Chinese consignee involved, along with its cargo insurance interests, are now attempting to locate the vessel. While an AIS signal in early August indicated the vessel is off Khor Fakkan anchorage, sources involved in attempting to locate the ship told TradeWinds that they believed the Winsome was anchored off Bandar Abbas, Iran.
The agency notes that it is unclear what has happened to the vessel but speculation is abound that it could have been hijacked by Iranian interests, because of similar recent incidents — and the sometimes murky nature of tanker movements in the region. Last week, there was a widely reported attempt to hijack the tanker Asphalt Princess (built 1976) while in the Gulf of Oman.
The Winsome is owned by single-ship company Lynx Marine and operates under the technical management of Dubai-based ship manager Clara Shipping, who did not respond to requests for comments when contacted by Tradewinds.
The private company running Guyana’s maritime registry is investigating the tanker, according to New York-based United against Nuclear Iran, an international non-profit organisation headed by a former US ambassador. It has engaged in an extensive letter-writing campaign to flag registries, insurers and classification societies in order to expose the subterfuge fleet of tankers that are shipping Iranian energy commodities. However, when contacted for a comment by Lloyd’s list, it didn’t respond.
Winsome has spent ten of the past 12 months shipping Iranian crude to China, but since early May has been in waters off Fujairah, and later Sohar, well-known ship-to-ship transfer sites for Iranian crude according to the news agency.
Before Winsome joined Guyana, it had been flagged in Gabon and Panama since its sale in October 2020.
Tankers engaged in subterfuge trades target little-known African, Caribbean and Pacific country registries that provide little regulatory oversight or have any depth of maritime expertise. Management is mostly provided by private companies who are not based, nor connected, to the country of flag origin.
Another tanker, Escapade joined Guyana’s flag in November 2019 upon its sale to undisclosed owners in Dubai. Both tankers share the same Emirati technical manager, Safe Seas Ship Management FZE, in Sharjah.

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