Pirates steal oil from Thai tanker hijacked off Malaysia

[Soutpeel]

Perhaps there is a contributor to this forum that can try and bring some sense to the actual scale of this incident.

Recently a Thai tanker (the Orapin, was seized by pirates in the waters around Singapore and southern Malaysia. As one member said, it would take quite a large vessel to transfer cargo from a ship the size of the Orapin and by global VLCC & ULCC standards, she is quite small.

orapin.jpg

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/730977-pirates-free-indonesia-bound-thai-tanker-after-cargo-theft/

In this most recent incident, the subject of this topic, the ship's name is not mentioned neither the tonnage. I find it hard to believe a pirate crew operating a small vessel would have the facilities to transfer a large tonnage of oil from one vessel to another. If it was a larger ship, it would be easier to trace and somewhat harder to hide.

Maybe someone with marine knowledge can enlarge if interested.

look up the recent case of the United Kalavrvta in the gulf of mexico, this vessel was carrying 1.0 million barrels of crude, effectively disappeared 60nm of the coat of the US, although not a case of piracy, illustrates how easy a large vessel, can disappear in "open waters" you turn off the AIS and "black out" very difficult to find, even in one of the most patrolled waters on the planet, the GOM, even the US coast guard cant find them that easily and this vessel was far larger than the ones we are talking about

This side of the world and the specific areas under discussion, far less patrols by various countries "coast guards" and too many counties involved as regards whose responsiblity various tracts of "water" fall under eg Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia etc compounded by the fact Indonesia, and I am up for correction, has something like 7000 islands in their area of "repsonsilbity" I think the point being, if one wanted to make a ship of a decent size to "disappear" in this neck of the woods, its actually not that hard.

these acts of fuel piracy, are not undertaken by "fly by night" small scale pirates, but by "sophisticated organisations" who have the manpower and infrastructure to "move" these sorts of shipments, they are not stealing the oil and hanging onto it, looking for a buyer, a lot of these these shipments are "sold on" even before they are stolen.

As regard the logistics of transferring and stealing a cargo quickly, a "tanker" by the nature of its design is to offload cargo quickly and certainly has the pumping capability to do this for its legimate customers, all it would take in the open sea's is to bring another vessel along side, connect the "hose" and start the pumps and lets say 10-12 hours later, the tanks are empty dependent on the size of vessel, but to put it in perspective even smaller vessels are well capable of pumping 300 to 400 thousand liters in a few hours with smaller/lower capacity pumping systems than are on the average tanker.

The "pirate tanker' disappears over the "horizon" and meets up with smaller vessels in the "organisation" and distributes the shipment to these smaller vessels, and off they go into the "islands" of indonesia, so its very possible for a whole large shipment of stolen oil to "evaporate" in lets say a 24 hour period, never to be seen again, by the time things are reported and various "coast guards" mobilised, its all gone, and as the shipping lanes are some of the busiest in the world around this region, very difficult to find or indentify a single ship, if it has turned off its AIS system and has "blacked out".

[Soutpeel]

Was this in Chinese territorial waters ?

Here's picture, what do you think?

tioman tanker attack..jpg

I am guessing a picture is better as this specific poster must have trouble reading.... per the OP "Malaysia's east coast"....

[Expat1]

Wow, there are a lot of FNGs on this site. I worked in the marine and offshore industry for a long time in the 70's and 80's and there was just as much of this then as now. The problem now seems to be one of media hype and perception. Most people in the industry are aware that the type of "piracy" in this particular case was set up as an inside job. It is the norm around Asia and accepted on the local level. Sorry but that is the way the game is played here. Not many here are familiar with how some of the biggest names in Asia got rich on doing exactly this and still do from time to time as I am told by good friends still in the industry. As to the western concept of put armed guards on board the ship ok, fine but, who pays for it and what insurance company will cover it. Also to the uninitiated merc who is willing and foolish enough to stand guard on certain Asian owned tankers and cargo vessels, you would be better pointing that weapon at the captain and crew than over the railing as you are interfering with their livelihood. It is always about perception people, mostly theirs.

[wabothai]

How about a quick mayday from the captain before these.....climb aboard.

The nearest navy or airforce can be called within minutes.

I just don't get it. A jet is faster than some speedboats.

[Soutpeel]

How about a quick mayday from the captain before these.....climb aboard.

The nearest navy or airforce can be called within minutes.

I just don't get it. A jet is faster than some speedboats.

why dont you call Chuck Norris or Arnie or Team American as well while your at it

[crobe]

The Thailand space agency - GISTDA - actually has an in-house system that could help in these circumstances.

It is a maritime surveillance system that uses radar satellites and the transponder signals from large ships (called automated identification of shipping) to locate and identify every ship in a 1000Km radius - which takes it well into the south China sea and south of Singapore.

If you take away all the known signals than you can track all ships of a certain size even if they are "dark" and giving no signal.

The ship the pirates used in this case to steal the cargo would have been trackable by this system if it had been made operational.

The same system can also be used to track oil spills.

The reason this has not been used is that buying the data for such persistent monitoring is very expensive, and due to the in-fighting in Thai government ministries (and within GISTDA), and government owned entities like PTT - no-one is willing to contribute to the cost.

Hopefully with the new administration this changes.

[ratcatcher]

How about a quick mayday from the captain before these.....climb aboard.

The nearest navy or airforce can be called within minutes.

I just don't get it. A jet is faster than some speedboats.

why dont you call Chuck Norris or Arnie or Team American as well while your at it

I think Sly and the Untouchables would be available?

[Soutpeel]

How about a quick mayday from the captain before these.....climb aboard.

The nearest navy or airforce can be called within minutes.

I just don't get it. A jet is faster than some speedboats.

why dont you call Chuck Norris or Arnie or Team American as well while your at it

I think Sly and the Untouchables would be available?

I think vessel owners in Thailand should just do a quick tour of Pattaya and recruit all the EX-SAS, CIA, Navy seals who frequent the area and create a quick response task group in response to these acts of piracy, the jet ski scammers of Pattaya can donate the "landing craft".....

I would like to nominate the TV member who openly displays the "who dares win" motto as the commanding officer of this elite fighting force.

I think we could talk to "Tony" as well, sure he would donate some TGAU's to the cause for morale purposes

good idea ?....what you think ?

[outsider]

The incident took place 'near the Malaysian resort island Tioman in the South China Sea'. Depending on how near is 'near' this could be bad news for tourism as well, as Tioman is one of the more popular island destination in Malaysia. Hope I will not get to read about incidents similar to those that happened in East Malaysia, when the pirates run out of ships to hijack and turn their attention to 'alternative sources'.

[Benmart]

Check all the Thai's bank accounts over the coming months.

Humor, conjecture or nonsense. In the absence of any additinal information, take your pick.

[Chao Lao Beach]

This seems to be happening monthly:

1/ wouldn't they notice troubles when the GOS tracking stops ?

2/ Wouldn't some authority notice a great big tanker parking and off loading with out paperwork ?

[sustento]

Perhaps there is a contributor to this forum that can try and bring some sense to the actual scale of this incident.

Recently a Thai tanker (the Orapin, was seized by pirates in the waters around Singapore and southern Malaysia. As one member said, it would take quite a large vessel to transfer cargo from a ship the size of the Orapin and by global VLCC & ULCC standards, she is quite small.

orapin.jpg

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/730977-pirates-free-indonesia-bound-thai-tanker-after-cargo-theft/

In this most recent incident, the subject of this topic, the ship's name is not mentioned neither the tonnage. I find it hard to believe a pirate crew operating a small vessel would have the facilities to transfer a large tonnage of oil from one vessel to another. If it was a larger ship, it would be easier to trace and somewhat harder to hide.

Maybe someone with marine knowledge can enlarge if interested.

Orapin 4 is 3800dwt tonnes, 90 metres long and has a draft of about 4 metres. She probably has about 10 crew on board and when laden would have a freeboard so low you could step on board from a big launch. She's basically a coaster.

Lube oil is a highly valuable cargo which would be easy to sell on. It needs no further refining. Remember how much it costs to buy a litre of oil for your car? Now imagine how much 3500 tonnes of that is worth.

[englishoak]

Check its not an insurance job or arrangement by the owners and or some crew.