Iran announced on Thursday that it possessed a court order to seize the Richmond Voyager, an oil tanker that collided with an Iranian vessel in the Gulf waters. This incident involved one of the two tankers the US Navy claimed to have prevented Iran from commandeering.
According to the Maritime Search and Rescue Center of Iran’s Hormozgan Province, the Richmond Voyager, registered under the Bahamas flag, collided with an Iranian ship. The Iranian navy had obtained a court order to seize the tanker, as reported by the official IRINN news agency.
In response to a distress call from the Richmond Voyager, the US Navy dispatched the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul to the scene off the coast of Oman in international waters. The US Navy stated that Iranian authorities had requested the tanker to halt and fired shots, but the Iranian navy vessel left when the USS McFaul arrived.
Iran claimed that the collision with the Richmond Voyager had injured five individuals and caused flooding on board the Iranian ship, which carried a crew of seven. It was further asserted that the tanker did not stop after the incident, prompting the owner of the Iranian ship to request the seizure of the Richmond Voyager, as per IRINN.
Chevron, the US oil company responsible for managing the Richmond Voyager, confirmed that the crew members were unharmed, and the vessel continued its normal operations.
Earlier, the US Navy had responded to another incident involving the TRF Moss, an oil tanker flying the flag of the Marshall Islands, in the same region.
Approximately one-fifth of the world’s seaborne crude oil and oil products pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint between Iran and Oman, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa. The region has experienced a series of shipping attacks since 2019 during periods of heightened tension between the United States and Iran.
