US suspects seized tanker is in Iranian custody

The ship tracking website said the vessel was scheduled to return to Sharjah on July 15.

A ship reportedly chartered by a petroleum trading company in Sharjah has gone missing in the Strait of Hormuz, and American officials suspect the tanker is in Iranian custody.

The Panama-flagged oil tanker Riah previously named the Chahat, stopped transmitting its location two days ago after leaving UAE waters heading towards Iranian waters. Data on the ship-tracking website marinetraffic.com showed that the vessel began its journey near a port off the coast of Dubai on July 5.

The website then tracked the ship near the coast of Ras Al Khaimah when it changed course and traveled north towards Iranian waters near the Strait of Hormuz, after which it stopped transmitting its signal on Saturday night. The website said the vessel was scheduled to return to Sharjah on July 15.

A UAE official told Wam on Tuesday that the oil tanker MT Riah is not owned by the UAE. "The tanker in question is neither UAE-owned nor operated," he explained.

"It does not carry Emirati personnel and did not emit a distress call. We are monitoring the situation with our international partners," he concluded.

The vessel is 30 years old and tiny. Its capacity is 2,000 deadweight tons, according to the MarineTraffic website.

Iran offered no immediate comment on what happened to the tanker but an American defense official told the Associated Press that the US suspects Iran seized the vessel amid heightened tensions in the region.

The official said MT Riah was in Iranian territorial waters near Qeshm Island, which has a Revolutionary Guard base on it. "We certainly have suspicions that it was taken," he said.

According to AP, the ship's registered owners Prime Tankers LLC had sold the ship to another company called Moj Al Bahar in Dubai. Khaleej Times reached out to an official with Moj Al Bahar Ship Spare Parts Trading who said they do not own the vessel, but only brokered for the charterer.

"MT Riah's owner is an Iraqi company and the charterer for the vessel is a Sharjah Free Zone-based company called KRB Petroleum," he told Khaleej Times.

Khaleej Times reached out to KRB petroleum for comments, however, an official spokesperson was not reachable.