Oil is a steal these days.

[OriginalWheelman]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7733482.stm

Somali pirates have seized a giant Saudi-owned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean and are steering it towards Somalia, the US Navy reports.

The Sirius Star is the biggest ship ever to be hijacked, with a capacity of 2m barrels - more than one-quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output.

The vessel was captured on Saturday some 450 nautical miles (830km) off the Kenyan coast.

Its international crew of 25, including two Britons, is said to be safe.

US Navy officials said the hijacking was unprecedented and marks a fundamental shift in their capabilities.

Wow. This has got to stop. Who are these pirates?

[HashiriyaS14]

Wow. This has got to stop. Who are these pirates?

The same militants who have been causing trouble over there for years.

It's not like there's some coherent group out there organizing all these hijackings, just pockets of people acting independently. Somalia is lawless.

If you think about it, it isn't really that tough.

You've got guns and years of fighting experience and you want money and a way out. Tons of shipping traffic runs through that region, so you hijack something with valuable cargo and try to make some cash. A very old game.

So long as Somalia and the rest of the region remains overrun with well-armed lawless bandits in need of capital, this will continue to occur.

You'd think they'd start arming civilian vessels better though. I'd definitely have a few M2's on swivels and some men on watch if I owned a tanker/container ship that operated in that region.

[szh]

You'd think they'd start arming civilian vessels better though. I'd definitely have a few M2's on swivels and some men on watch if I owned a tanker/container ship that operated in that region.

Exactly what I was thinking earlier this afternoon when I heard about the two other ships that were taken after the giant oil tanker yesterday!

About time some of these pirateers were ... "lost with all hands on board", shall we say.

Z

[ishkabibble]

That, and arm the cargo ship with hidden explosive devices.

[OriginalWheelman]

So... time to get a boat and some guns and go "apply for a job"?

"What are your qualifications?""I have a boat full of ammo and I'm not bound by the Geneva Convention."

[480sx]

You'd think they'd start arming civilian vessels better though. I'd definitely have a few M2's on swivels and some men on watch if I owned a tanker/container ship that operated in that region.

There is a massive problem with this however. Its been tried, it fails bad. I hate to be the one who says this phrase but in this case its quite valid. Responding to violence with violence simply escalates the problem. All the major shipping companies know this, thats why its forbidden to arm crews. If they start a ship to ship war, the potential for catastrophe becomes massive. Its much better to pay a hijacker a million and have a whole crew and your boat returned to you than it is for that ship to take a RPG to the hull and sink, killing everyone on board and losing a multi million dollar boat.

Not even going to get into why you dont want to arm an oil or gas tanker with weapons..

Now what i think should happen.. There needs to be a strong UN response to this. UN needs men, war boats and air support capable of wrecking these unorganized, untrained, 'thugs' of the sea. Not really very hard to do, these guys arnt soldiers. I mean for real.. Pirates? Its the 21st century give me a fvkin break.

[96Qowner]

Piracy is as old as prostitution. It will probably exist just as long.

The ethic is this: "We declare these sea lanes to be ours, and as long as you cannot protect your ships, we will seize them and do what we wish with them."

The Saudis and the Iranians can't police their own shores? The Iranians can't deal with some Somali pirates? Gimme a break. It's not a UN problem.

[480sx]

This isnt an isolated event, this is a global problem. Im not sure if you caught it in the news a while back, but pirates sized a (IIRC) russian bound shipment of tanks, mines, ammunition and other stuff that would be horrible if terrorists gotten their hands on it. The US deployed helis and troops to contain the issue until its resolved. There are issues in Asia as well, i recently read a story about a group of ruthless pirates who killed everyone on board a ship every time they hijacked it. They were found and executed quite brutally to send a message to would be pirates of that area.

I mean technically no one owns the seas so technically they are unprotected. Why is that? Why couldnt there be an international organization like the UN that is in charge of keeping international waters clear as well as the waters clear in key passage areas for international cargo. On top of that, taking charge in shipping lanes near countries like Somalia that has no real government to do these things. It would benefit us all, and in the long run save us money and lives.

I mean for real.. We got GPS on every large vessel thats worth hijacking, and they all have SAT com capability, why the hell is this still a problem?

[HashiriyaS14]

Its much better to pay a hijacker a million and have a whole crew and your boat returned to you than it is for that ship to take a RPG to the hull and sink, killing everyone on board and losing a multi million dollar boat.

You make a very convincing point with this.

I agree that there needs to be some sort of organization that deals with these incidents when they occur in international waters.

[szh]

The Saudis and the Iranians can't police their own shores? The Iranians can't deal with some Somali pirates? Gimme a break. It's not a UN problem.

Problem with the Saudi oil tanker was that it was taken 450 miles off the Kenyan coast. Way far out at sea.

Pretty far from Saudi Arabian coast-line, unfortunately.

Z

[OriginalWheelman]

*Updates*

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7739153.stm

Crisis meeting over Somali piracy

A spate of pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia has prompted an emergency meeting between nations bordering the Red Sea to deal with the problem.

Senior officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen are meeting in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

...

A pirate on board the vessel calling himself Mohamed Said was quoted by news agency AFP as saying that the Saudi owners, Vela International, had been set a 10-day deadline to hand over a $25m ransom.

BBC Security correspondent Frank Gardner says the owners are effectively denying that figure, while the industry is expecting the demand to be higher.

...

The 25 captive crew on the Sirius Star include 19 Filipinos, two British citizens, two Poles, one Croatian, and one Saudi national.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he could not comment on negotiations.

However, he did say: "There is a strong view of the British government, and actually the international community, that payments for hostage-taking are only an encouragement to further hostage-taking and we will be approaching this issue in a very delicate way, in a way that puts the security and safety of the hostages to the fore."

With Britain's Royal Navy co-ordinating the European response to the incident, Mr Miliband said: "There is a fundamental problem in the Gulf of Aden. That is why the deployment of the European force is the right thing to do."

...

Russia has announced it is to send more warships to the region to counter the pirates.

...

In a rare victory against the organised gangs, the Indian navy said it had sunk a suspected pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden, several hundred kilometres north of the location where the hijackers boarded the Sirius Star.

Well, seems the Brits and the Ruskis are going in to kick some ***. Good for them. Props to the Indians. This is what this situation needs, overwhelming force.

[AZhitman]

Interesting that the Somali pirates picked off a couple Iranian and (IIRC) Syrian freighters.

Hey Middle Eastern Countries: We're not the bad guys. In fact, those "bad guys" who stole your boat? Yep - They're fellow Muslims, and they don't give a damn about you. We'd love to help, but we're a little busy these days.

How about focusing some of that hatred on the cesspool that is Somalia?

[BusyBadger]

Yeah, and we're the bad guys. But, maybe we (the US) can turn this to our advantage...

Issue a few letters of marque to some select pirates in order to obtain some cargo from the tankers. Then if we're lucky we'll have different pirate factions competing to negotiate the best deals with us. We could even offer free health care and maybe even some educational benefits for outstanding performance (quotas).

Free markets and entrepreneurship at work. No reason we shouldn't behave like the monsters they believe us to be.

[480sx]

No reason we shouldn't behave like the monsters they believe us to be.

I hope your not serious, because thats a powerfully stupid thing to say.

[BusyBadger]

You may be right – I mean, how far does the US need to go to be considered truly monstrous by cultures that view beheadings, rape, female circumcisions, genital mutilation and mass stoning for offenses as the norm and feel content to live a lifestyle that they’d prefer stay in the fifth or sixth century?

But then, monstrous could be airdropping some care packages of pork rinds and Bacon bits and having our ambassador be a woman that arrives dressed up in the Princess Leia slave outfit.

But we're getting OT here...maybe the big oil companies should consider the pirates as globally outsourced labour and put them on the payroll, or as subcontracted consultants - whatever gets them a better tax break and bigger profits.