Piracy Feared as Chemical Tanker Goes Missing in Gulf of Guinea

By Angus MacSwan

DAKAR, Aug 22 (Reuters)– A tanker vessel with 19 team participants aboard, a lot of them Georgians, has actually gone missing out on in pirate-plagued waters off Gabon in West Africa and also no word has actually been spoken with it for a week, the ship’s supervisors and also the team firm stated on Wednesday.

Communication was shed with the Panama- signed up Pantelena at regarding 2 a.m. regional time onAug 14, at which time it had to do with 17 miles from the port of Libreville, in Gabon, Athens- based Lotus Shipping stated in a declaration.

The head of the Georgian team firm Ialkani, Anzhela Oganesyan, stated 2 Russian nationals and also 17 Georgians were aboard the vessel. She stated she had no information thus far regarding the vessel’s destiny.

The Georgian federal government additionally stated 17 of its residents were offering on the Pantelena.

The Russian RIA information firm reported the Russian Embassy in Gabon as claiming 2 Russians got on the vessel and also it touched with their family members.

Lotus offered no more information on the freight and also team, and also did not state if it thought the Pantelena had actually been pirated by pirates. The vessel is a double objective oil or chemicals vessel.

“We at Lotus Shipping, acting on behalf of the vessel’s owners…have set as our first and foremost priority to safeguard the safety of the crew and with their interest in mind we cannot provide any additional media comments at this point in time,” it stated.

The Pantelena got on path from Lome to Libreville and also was last seen nearing the Gabon coastline at 9 p.m. onAug 13, according to deliver monitoring information on Reuters, which provides the ship as a double-hulled oil vessel handled by Lotus.

While piracy has actually lowered worldwide, the Gulf of Guinea has actually come to be a raising target for pirates that swipe freight and also need ransom money. Piracy- relevant concerns were a years earlier concentrated off the East African coastline, specifically Somalia’s unpoliced waters.

Ships in the Gulf of Guinea were the target of a collection of piracy-related events in 2014, according to a record in January by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which highlighted the waters off West Africa as a location of expanding issue.

Ten events of kidnapping including 65 team participants happened in or around Nigerian waters, the IMB stated. Globally 16 vessels reported being bombarded, 7 of which remained in the Gulf ofGuinea (Reporting by Edward McAllister and also Angus MacSwan in Dakar and also Marta Ardashelia in Tiblisi, Editing by Toby Chopra)