Malaysia coastguard intercepts missing oil tanker from Singapore blaze

An oil tanker that left the site of a collision and fire east of Singapore had been intercepted off the coast of Malaysia in the early hours of Sunday, Malaysian maritime authorities said.

Ceres I, a crude oil tanker sailing under the flag of Sao Tome & Principe, and the Hafnia Nile, a Singapore-flagged refined-products tanker, crashed early Friday morning in one of the world’s busiest waterways, setting both ablaze. Ceres I appeared to then have switched off its transponder for more than a day, according to Bloomberg ship-tracking data.

After being tracked by Malaysian authorities, Ceres I was intercepted 28 nautical miles off Tioman Island at 1.20am local time on Sunday, pulled by two tug boats, the coastguard said in a statement. All three have been detained.

“Malaysia has successfully located and detained the Ceres I together with two tugboats that were towing it” off the country’s eastern coast, Zin Azman Mohamad Yunus, the coastguard’s search and rescue commander, said in the statement.

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An aerial survey detected some traces of a spill, but further checks and an investigation will follow.

Singapore authorities said on Friday that 36 crew members from both vessels were rescued, but 26 remained on the Ceres I to fight the fire.

Ceres I was built in 2001, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, meaning it is still in use well beyond when most owners would consider scrapping a vessel. It was also sailing under an obscure flag, used by only 55 vessels out of a merchant fleet of tens of thousands of ships – both characteristics common to almost all dark fleet ships.

The vessel, a very large crude carrier or VLCC, hauled cargoes from Iran and