THE Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (ARAMCO) pt 2 (merged)

[dorlomin]

The tanker is headed into a Somali port.

That is 318 000 tonnes of the property of King Abdullah al Saud gaurdian of the two holy mosques. And its not going into any but a handfull of the worlds ports that can handle a VLCC. I doubt Mogadishu is one of them.

[ReverseEngineer]

This one was clearly predictable, as I mentioned in another post last night, protection of the oil tankers at sea is fundamentally necessary right now. Why we would allow a tanker with $100M worth of oil and itself worth probably $1B float on the high seas without monitoring it to make sure there was not other ships near enough to be a threat. After a Ukranian ship loaded with a bunch of tanks was hijacked a few weeks ago, duh this was the next obvious pirate target.

Clear incompetence here on the part of our National Security apparatus. These bozos are always one step behind the action instead of one step ahead.

Reverse Engineer

[GoghGoner]

The tanker is headed into a Somali port.

That is 318 000 tonnes of the property of King Abdullah al Saud gaurdian of the two holy mosques. And its not going into any but a handfull of the worlds ports that can handle a VLCC. I doubt Mogadishu is one of them.

LOL! I didn't think of that. I wonder what these pirates are thinking, they seem to be smarter than I.

Doesn't seem like they could get that much money for a ship that they cannot dock.

Great Analysis

[3aidlillahi]

Put this into perspective. The nation of Somalia has a GDP of roughly $2 billion. Half of that is remittances. So we're looking at a $1 billion USD GDP. This single tanker (sans oil) is worth as much as that entire nation. 450 miles clearly was not far enough away for the safety of this vessel to be secured.

Largest vessel ever taken. Longest distance from shore a piracy ever committed. Pretty amazing. It's got to be one of the most expensive loads ever taken.

Given the politics of Somalia, Id not be suprised if Saudi dont have a bit more leverage with the Somalis than just about anyone else

I'd say Yemen actually. That's where most of the Somalis flee towards and they are pretty big trading partners as well as UAE and Djibouti.

2 million x 50USD/barrel = 100 million ransom just for the oil. The ship might be wroth the same so maybe 200 million ransom. The crew are shark bait so not worth anything of course.

Assuming this is unrefined petroleum, I'd hang on to it. It could easily be worth double in a few months if there's a good winter. Triple by summer is a possibility. I doubt it can fall much more.

With a population 1/30 the size of the US, this oil could supply them with US standards for 72 hours! Maybe they just wanna joy ride in convertibles like Americans do. They already have the religious insanity and clinginess to guns down pat. Give them a Hummer and we can call them Moh 6-Pack

[Armageddon]

I am suprised we haven't seen one of these tankers blown up.

[lowem]

Assuming this is unrefined petroleum, I'd hang on to it. It could easily be worth double in a few months if there's a good winter. Triple by summer is a possibility. I doubt it can fall much more.

Yep, crude oil can keep. It's been hanging around for a couple hundred million years, what's a few more months anyway.

The smart thing would be to hide the crude somewhere, let the crew go, and sell the oil on the open market, you know, actually deliver into a short futures contract when oil rebounds and marches back toward $200

At 2 million barrels, the haul would be closer to $400 million then, instead of $110 million now.

[lowem]

... not sure what they're gonna do with the ship though

[seldom_seen]

This story has a stink to it. I don't buy it.

The Somalis might hijack a french yacht here and there, but they are right next door to SA, their Islamic overlords...and they know that SA could make life very tough for them if they steal a fully laden oil tanker.

It looks like a faux hijacking to get a boost on oil prices.

[Dan1195]

Pirates have become much more bold with their targets recently. As opposed to just grabbing "random" vessels just to ransom the captain, they are now attacking larger ships with more valuable cargo and trying to hold the cargo/ship itself. Hopefully these events are a wakeup call to try to get more protection for these vessels.

[lawnchair]

Guys, a supertanker is not $100 million.

More like a billion.

More like $125-150 million. Link.

Not exactly complicated designs. Just freaking big.

[Revi]

I like the idea of them taking it into a bay or a river in Somalia and offloading the contents onto trucks and camels.

Unfortunately you can't hide a tanker.

The ransom will be paid and they will move on.

It's getting interesting.

It didn't affect the price of oil.

It closed around $55 today.

At least somebody wants the stuff.

[flapjax]

Why are they calling them nice little pirates again? Where did good old fashioned "terrorists" go?

[billg]

Pretty impressive accomplishment for a bunch of ** Especially how they can seamingly own the US Navy and other foreign marines in the area. Maybe piracy will make a strong comeback in the coming years...

hmmm...i'm surprised mods would allow racial slurs here.

{epithet deleted}

[GoghGoner]

Around 1987, give or take a year, I was playing a PC game call Pirates (on a 5.25 floppy). At that time, it seemed like pirates were some relics of the past that would not be revisited.

For the post above, everybody who commits crimes are not called terrorists. I admire pirates.

[jbrovont]

"Terrorist" is so 2001 dude.

Why are they calling them nice little pirates again? Where did good old fashioned "terrorists" go?

[eXpat]

I bet is to power the russian tanks, they stole previously

[alokin]

There is something wrong with this story:
First you cannot hide an oil tanker, as said before. What would pirates do with the tanker? Sell it for scrap?
They can sell the oil, but why the would pirates not wait for some month until oil rebounds (as you cannot hide the tanker you must sell it right away). With all the satelites it is easy to trace were the ship is and the unloading of the ship.

The only thing is I can imagine, that if it is not a made-up thing, that pirates hijacked the vessel just to show us how weak and vulnerable we are.

[Plantagenet]

There is something wrong with this story:
First you cannot hide an oil tanker, as said before. What would pirates do with the tanker? Sell it for scrap?
They can sell the oil, but why the would pirates not wait for some month until oil rebounds (as you cannot hide the tanker you must sell it right away). With all the satelites it is easy to trace were the ship is and the unloading of the ship.

The only thing is I can imagine, that if it is not a made-up thing, that pirates hijacked the vessel just to show us how weak and vulnerable we are.

The tanker isn't "hidden." Its been taken into a port in Somalia. The pirates aren't interested in selling the oil. They will hold the tanker and the crew for ransom..... 2 million barrels of oil at $50 a barrel is worth a cool 100 million dollars, and the ship is probably worth another 100 million or so.

How much ransom do you think the Saudis will pay?

[ReverseEngineer]

It would seem to me that unless the hijackers are the suicidal types willing to scuttle the ship while they are still on board that the Navy SEALS should be able to hijack the ship BACK before it makes port. Maybe this is a setup job to showcase the talent of the Special Forces?

The Brit Hostages present a problem of course, soon as you bring in the SEALS for a boarding party, Hostages will be shot and pitched overboard. However, which is worth more, the Oil or a few Brit sailors?

If they do let the ship make a harbor that will fit the draft and it drops anchor, then there is about no way you could get the ship back without either paying a huge ransom or mounting a huge military operation, and chances are the Somalies would then scuttle the ship before you could get it out of the harbor.

There is a decent possibility this is a covert CIA operation designed to get the Saudis to pay us to be their Sea Lane Police Force. Pay off the Somalies to hijack the ship, which then convinces the Saudis they can't sell any oil overseas to anywhere without our protection.

In any event, I can't see Supertankers taking any route that passes within 500 miles of Somalia without having an armed escort at this point. Without the ability to safely export their Oil, the House of Saud is up a creek without a paddle, so they will have to either pay Protection money to the Somalies, or pay Protection money to the US Navy. So basically, we can charge the entire war in Iraq to the Saudis as a Gangland style Protection scheme. We no longer will have to pay taxes to fund the US Military, the Saudis will have to pay the bills

Reverse Engineer

[Ayame]

It would seem to me that unless the hijackers are the suicidal types willing to scuttle the ship while they are still on board

Bagged it in one. The Somali pirates have often threatened to blow themselves up along with precious cargo if a ransom wasn't coughed up.