Pirates hijack Saudi oil supertanker

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By Raissa Kasolowsky and Simon Webb

DUBAI (Reuters) - Somali pirates have captured a fully laden Saudi supertanker far off east Africa, seizing the biggest vessel ever hijacked with a cargo of oil worth over $100 million (67 million pounds) in an attack that pushed world crude prices higher.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet said the Sirius Star was being taken to the pirate haven of Eyl, in northern Somalia, Monday.

The hijacking of the Saudi Aramco-owned vessel Sunday is certain to add to pressure for concerted international action to tackle the growing threat posed by pirates from anarchic Somalia to one of the world's busiest shipping routes.

"This is unprecedented. It's the largest ship that we've seen pirated," said Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet. "It's three times the size of an aircraft carrier."

The Sirius Star held as much as two million barrels of oil -- more than one quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily exports. The hijacking helped lift global oil prices over $1 to more than $58 a barrel, although they later lost some gains.

The hijacking Sunday, 450 nautical miles (830 km) southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, was in an area far beyond the Gulf of Aden, where most of the attacks on shipping have taken place and where foreign navies have begun patrols.

The pirates have been getting bolder.

The Sirius Star had been heading for the United States via the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, skirting the continent instead of heading through the Gulf of Aden and then the Suez Canal.

The ship, at 318,000 deadweight tons, was the largest ever captured by pirates.

CHAOS SPAWNS PIRACY

There were no reports of damage, Christensen said. He declined to say if the U.S. navy was considering taking action to rescue the tanker, which had 25 crew from Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.

"We are evaluating the situation," he said.

Chaos onshore in Somalia, where Islamist forces are fighting a Western-backed government, has spawned a wave of piracy. Shipowners have paid out millions of dollars in ransoms.

Northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, where Eyl is located, was on the lookout for the ship. Authorities there have said they can do little to stop ships being seized.

"It has not entered Puntland's waters so far," Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf, the assistant minister for fisheries, told Reuters.

Well over 60 vessels have been hijacked this year, driving up shipping insurance premiums and pushing some vessels to take longer routes between Asia and Europe than passing through the Suez Canal -- potentially increasing the cost of traded goods.

Among the vessels seized is one with 33 tanks on board.

British thinktank Chatham House warned in a report last month of the danger a tanker could come under attack.

"As pirates become bolder and use ever more powerful weaponry a tanker could be set on fire, sunk or forced ashore, any of which could result in an environmental catastrophe that would devastate marine and bird life for years to come," it said.

"The pirates' aim is to extort ransom payments and to date that has been their main focus; however, the possibility that they could destroy shipping is very real."

The NATO alliance and the European Union have scrambled to provide patrols in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean waterways off Somalia. The United States and France, which have bases nearby, are also helping, while Russia has sent a warship too.

The Sirius Star is Liberian-flagged, and owned and operated by state oil giant Saudi Aramco's shipping unit Vela International. The vessel was launched in March.

(Additional reporting by Luke Pachymuthu in Dubai, Abdiqani Hassan in Bossaso, Stefano Ambrogi and Dave Cutler in London, David Clarke in Nairobi; editing by Matthew Tostevin)

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