A Japanese oil tanker collided with a US guided missile destroyer in the Arabian Gulf early this morning, according to a statement from the fifth fleet of the US Navy.
“No one was hurt Sunday morning when a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer and a large Japanese-owned merchant vessel collided near the Strait of Hormuz,” the US Navy’s fifth fleet said in a statement on its website.
Photos (click on image to view) and video of the damage have been published by the US Navy:
According to a Reuters report citing the Omani coastguard, tanker traffic through the Strait has not been affected.
“The collision between USS Porter (DDG 78) and the Panamanian-flagged bulk oil tanker M/V Otowasan occurred at approximately 1:00 am,” (2200 GMT Saturday), said the website of the Bahrain-based fleet, which confirmed the incident was not combat related, but has not given further details.
At its narrowest, the Strait is 21 miles wide. Under a naval traffic system it operates two lanes, each of which is two miles wide, with the lanes separated by a two-mile vacant channel. Around 14 tankers pass through the channel every day, a fifth of global oil tanker traffic.
There is no reported leak from the M/V Otowasan. The tanker, owned by Tokyo-based Mitsui OSK Lines, can hold 2 million barrels of crude oil and is currently 95% full, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. According to Bloomberg, the tanker was headed from Qatar to the bunkering hub of Fujairah in the UAE.
The Strait of Hormuz, located at the mouth of the Arabian Gulf, is one of the world’s key strategic chokepoints for the flow of oil and liquefied natural gas, and sees constant container traffic, making it one of the most congested bodies of deep water in the world.
The fifth fleet is charged with patrolling the Gulf and has stepped up its presence around the Strait of Hormuz in recent months as tensions between much of the international community and Iran have risen over measures taken by the US and EU with the aim of stopping Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.
Last month, a US Navy ship opened fire on an Emirati fishing vessel just off the coast of Dubai, killing one Indian national and injuring three others.
