SEA SHARK

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Part of the crew returning home

Ukrainian sailors from the "Sea Shark" which has been detained in Egypt were due to arrive to Odesa on May 27. The tanker with crude oil and 11 members of the crew have been kept in the area of Ain Sokhna since December 2018. Five of the 17 Ukrainian sailors will arrive in Odesa airport on May 27. A part of the remaining crew, along with the Ukrainian captain Vitaliy Nesterenko, was released and sent to the hotel, where they were waiting for documents and returning home The tanker was detained by the Navy of Egypt due to unintentional and accidental entry into the territorial waters of the country. Sailors were sued for crossing the Egyptian waters for $56 million, which must be paid by the owner of the ship. Since then, the shipowner and freighter have been negotiating with the Egyptian fleet to release the ship and to organize a change of crew. The tanker is loaded of 1.1 million barrels of crude oil and is anchored in Ain-Sokhna. It was going to be moved to an unknown terminal. The crew was divided into two groups and gathered in two smokehouses. Some sailors had increased blood pressure, because of poor health. The captain asked the Egyptian military to provide medical assistance to the sailors, but they refused. Having receiving the relevant permission of the Egyptian naval forces, the vessel raised anchor on April 25 in the port of Berenice and departed to Ein El Sokhna Port, located 100 km from Cairo, where the replacement of the crew members was to take place. On April 27, when the ship arrived at the port of Ein El Sokhna, the Egyptian military prosecutor's office demanded that the crew had to unload the crude oil the ship was carrying over an alleged environmental threat.

Tanker crew stranded off Suez

The 31 crew members of the "Sea Shark" called Russian News Agency TASS and asked for help, describing their dramatic situation. The tanker had loaded a shipment of crude oil at Kharg Island Oil Terminal, Iran, and sailed to Suez in late Oct 2018, where it stopped, waiting for further instructions and flag change, because the Panama flag registry expired. The tanker was seized by the Egyptian Navy in late November 2018 for illegal entry of Egypt waters, though according to crew, the ship moved some 2 nm into its territorial waters in order not to lay dead in heavily trafficked waters of Red Sea shipping lanes. The tanker was taken to Ras Banas anchorage and kept there until April 25, 2019, when it moved northwards to the Sokhna coast, where she was anchored on April 27 and remains stationary since. Egypt imposed on owner $56 million fine. The owner was trying to appeal, while crew was remaining on board. While there were no wage delays, the contract time for all of the crew expired, with little hope of replacement. The crew included 17 Ukrainian, two Crimean, one Azerbaijan, and 11 from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and India. The tanker with some 1.1 mil barrels of crude oil worth some $75 million was seized, and $56 million re demanded for its release.

Third grounding in Suez Canal within two wweeks

The "Sea Landsort" ran aground during the northbound transit of the Suez Canal at canal km 159 on May 11, 2016, around 9 a.m. The accident happened shortly after entering the waterway, coming from Kharg Island, in the Suez port area. The tanker was the last ship in the Northbound convoy transiting the canal. The tanker was refloated at 12.05 p.m. with the help of the tugs, and taken back to the Suez South Anchorage. The cause of the grounding, the third such accident since the grounding of the "Eibhlin" and the "MSC Fabiola" end of April, and the extent of damage have not yet been disclosed.