After being stopped by the coast guard, a fire-hit tanker enters Malaysia's terminal area
Shipping data from LSEG & Kpler revealed that a tanker involved in a collision last week near Singapore entered the Bertam floating oil storage terminal area on Monday morning, after being intercepted on Sunday by local authorities.
On Friday, the supertanker Ceres I, flying the flag of Sao Tome & Principe, left the scene where a fireball collision occurred with another tanker, Hafnia Nil, flying the Singaporean flag.
In a Sunday statement, the Coast Guard said that two tugboats were towing Ceres I in Malaysian waters.
It said that the Coast Guard had detained the Ceres I, two tugboats and their crew for further investigation.
The Bertam floating storage, production and offloading terminal (FPSO), located in the South China Sea on the east coast Peninsula Malaysia is a major oil producing area.
The Ceres I supertanker is capable of carrying 2 million barrels. AIS data from LSEG revealed that Ceres I was empty.
Kpler data shows that between 2019 and 2024, Ceres I loaded crude oil and fuel oil from Venezuela and Iran through ship-to -ship transfers.
According to LSEG, Shanghai Prosperity Ship Management manages the Ceres I. The company was not immediately available for comment.
Hafnia Nile's manager, Hafnia said that the company was in talks with Malaysian authorities about safely moving the vessel.
The Hafnia Nile, a 74,000-deadweight-tons capacity Panamax tanker, was carrying about 300,000 barrels naphtha for Japan, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler and LSEG. Naphtha can be used to make petrochemicals.
Singapore is Asia's most important oil trading hub, and the largest bunkering facility in the world. The waters surrounding Singapore are some of the busiest sea lanes in the world.
Malaysia's Coast Guard said on Sunday that the Malaysian coast guard conducted aerial surveys and found minor traces at the site of the collision of the Ceres I with the Hafnia Nile, which took place in waters around 55 km (35 mi) northeast of Singaporean island Pedra Branca.
The environment department was informed and would conduct further monitoring, it stated. Reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore and Chen Aizhu, Rozanna in Kuala Lumpur, and editing by Christopher Cushing and Christian Schmollinger.
