Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

A Greek-operated oil tanker was bombed near a port in eastern Libya, killing two sailors and highlighting a fresh threat to shipments from the country with Africa’s biggest crude reserves.

The Araevo was bombed by an unidentified fighter jet at the port of Derna yesterday, Greece’s shipping ministry said on its website. The attack didn’t result in a leak and the vessel is now in Tobruk, another port that’s also in the country’s east, Ilias Syrros, the safety manager for Aegean Shipping Enterprises Co., the Piraeus, Greece-based firm operating the tanker, said by phone.

Libya is split between a United Nations-recognized government in the east and Islamists who control Tripoli in the west. Militants set storage tanks on fire at the eastern port of Es Sider last month and the country pumped an average of 450,000 barrels a day of crude in December compared with as much as 1.78 million in 2008.

“It’s clear that ports in the east of the country are extremely hazardous to shipping and owners and masters have to be extremely careful as to what arrangements they make,” Neil Roberts, the London-based senior executive at the Joint War Committee, an adviser to insurers, said by phone.

One of the sailors who died was Greek and the other was Romanian, according to Aegean. Two were hospitalized.

Review Terms

Brent crude slumped below $55 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange today for the first time since May 2009, amid a global surplus. Libya had about 48.47 billion barrels of unextracted oil reserves at the end of 2013, more than any other nation in Africa, according to data from BP Plc.

Araevo has a transportation capacity of 28,610 deadweight tons and is registered in Liberia, according to data from IHS Maritime. The ship is on a charter to Libya’s National Oil Corp. and has operated without incident between Derna and Marsa El Brega for several years, Greece’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It was hauling 12,600 tons of crude, Konstantinos Koutras, a spokesman for the ministry, said by phone.

The bombing is likely to prompt insurers to reconsider terms for Libya-bound ships, Andrew Bardot, secretary of International Group, said by e-mail. IG member organizations cover most of the world’s tankers against risks including oil spills.

“Shipowners are likely to think twice before contracting to trade to/from Libya,” Bardot said. “War-risk underwriters will be likely to reconsider the terms, if any, on which they are prepared to provide war risk cover for vessels engaged in such trade.”