Greek-flagged oil tanker on fire after Houthi attack, EU naval mission says

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By Ahmed Elimam, Nur-Azna Sanusi and Adam Makary

(Reuters) -The Greek-flagged crude oil tanker Sounion has been on fire in the Red Sea since Aug. 23 after an attack by Yemen’s Houthis with no obvious signs of an oil spill, the EU Red Sea naval mission Aspides said in a post on X on Monday.

The EU mission published photos dated Sunday showing fire and smoke coming out of the vessel’s main deck. Reuters has verified the authenticity of a Houthi video of a fiery assault on the ship.

The Sounion is carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil and poses an environmental hazard, shipping officials said. Aspides said part of Sounion’s superstructure was on fire and that flames were observed in at least five locations on the vessel’s main deck. If a spill occurs, it has the potential to be among the largest from a ship in recorded history.

“The vessel is carrying more than 1 million barrels of oil,” Lars Jensen, CEO of Vespucci Maritime, said in a recent post on LinkedIn.

Making matters worse, Jensen said, the risk of attacks from the Houthis will make it difficult to deploy vessels to mitigate and clean up should a spill occur.

The Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous regions, have been attacking ships in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The Iran-aligned rebels have sunk two ships and killed at least three crew in their 10-month campaign that has upended global ocean shipping by forcing vessel owners to avoid the Suez Canal shortcut.

The Sounion is the third vessel operated by Athens-based Delta Tankers to come under Houthi attack this month. The militants said Delta Tankers had violated their ban on “entry to the ports of occupied Palestine”.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elimam and Nayera Abdallah in Dubai, Adam Makary in Cairo, Nur-Azna Sanusi in Singapore, and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Michael Georgy, Shri Navaratnam, Barbara Lewis and Cynthia Osterman)