Navy Arrests Foreign Vessel laden with Stolen Crude; 10 Foreign & Nigerian Crew Members

The Nigerian Navy Ship ‘NNS Delta’ has made a major breakthrough with the arrest of an ocean going vessel loaded with stolen crude oil suspected to have been siphoned from one of the export loading platforms in the Niger Delta.

According to sources close to NNS Delta, the massive Panama registered vessel ‘MT Tecne’ measured 73m in length, 14m in breadth and has a draught of 4m.

It was revealed that the stolen crude oil was bunkered from ‘AFREMO A’ platform which is quantified to be 1905.836MT.

Aboard the arrested ship on Tuesday were 10 foreign and local crew members including 1 Nigerian, 2 Pakistanis, 3 Ghanaians, 1 Indonesian, 1 Béninois, 2 Ukrainian.

The vessel was captained by Captain Nasir Khan, a Pakistani.

At the time of arrest the vessel was completely darkened to avoid detection.

The breakthrough was sequel to the arrest of the vessel by NNS Delta patrol team at Latitude 05 27′ 36″N Long 005 10′ 11″E.

As at the time of arrest, the vessel was connected to an unlighted jacket stealing product suspected to be crude oil.