Oil Tanker BW Rhine Got Hit And Caused An Explosion In The Port Of Jeddah
An oil tanker named BW Rhine got hit and caused an explosion in the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
The owner said it was hit by “an external source” due to which fire occurred onboard after the explosion. However, the 22 crew of the ship is unharmed in the incident.
Singapore-flagged BW Rhine’s hull was greatly damaged by the explosion but there was enough time to put out the crew and fire.
The firm said it could be possible that some of the oil escaped from the vessel due to leakage and blazed the ship.
This incident occurred after two weeks of another tank explosion. The Maltese-flagged tanker went through blast damage at the Red Sea Port of Saudi.
A military coalition led by Saudi said that the vessel explosion was a foiled terrorist attack by an unmanned boat loaded with explosives.
Yemen’s rebel Houthis did not respond to this comment. However, a few days back they claimed that they have fired a missile towards Aramco petroleum products distribution plant in Jeddah in Saudi. The incident caused a tanker to catch fire.
The incident of BW Rhine took place at 00:40 local time on Monday and 21:40 GMT on Sunday.
The ship has been staying in the dock at Jeddah’s port since 12th December. It was carrying gasoline which was loaded from the nearby port of Yanbu five days earlier as per oil analytics firm Vortexa.
According to Hafnia, the crew manages to escape but the cargo and the ballast tanks were greatly damaged.
It further added, “It is possible that some oil has escaped from the vessel, but this has not been confirmed and instrumentation currently indicates that oil levels on board are at the same level as before the incident,”.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said another unnamed tanker also gone through an explosion in Jeddah along with some other reports of a second vessel being involved.
Jeddah’s port had been closed due to the incidents, according to the UKMTO. However, the authority did not confirm the closure.
Jeddah has the largest port in terms of volume and cargo handling capacity in Saudi Arabia. The port lies on the major international shipping route between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean.
