Singapore (Platts)--3Nov2008

Oil and chemical tankers plying the waters of Asia continued to be
frequently targeted by pirates during the third quarter of the year with most
of the attacks happening on the busy energy shipping routes of South East
Asia, the latest quarterly report from regional piracy watchdog ReCAAP showed.
Out of the 26 incidents reported between July and September this year, 10
cases involved tankers that included four chemical tankers, one product
tanker, two LPG tanker and three unspecified tankers, the watchdog said in its
third quarter report.
"In our observation, tankers are mostly attacked at the anchorages. Most
of the incidents are happening at the anchorages rather than while the ships
are steaming," Lee Yin Mui, assistant director of research at Singapore-based
ReCAAP, told Platts Monday.
She said that only one or two incidents have been reported so far this
year in incidents where the pirates have hijacked a vessel for its cargo.
One such vessel that was recently hijacked for its cargo was the Blue
Ocean 7, which was carrying 1,800 mt of crude palm-oil. The vessel was taken
by armed robbers on May 21 shortly after it had set sail from West Sulawesi's
Bone Manjing port to Surabaya in East Java in Indonesia.
The armed robbers took the ship to Sandakan in Malaysia's Sabah province
and managed to deliver the cargo to a party that was waiting for it.
Eventually, a security team comprising of Malaysian and Indonesian police and
naval officials was able to arrest the men involved in the heist, when they
had assembled at Tarakan, a city in East Kalimantan, to distribute the spoils.
The latest ReCAAP report, however, had a few positive pointers with the
July-September quarter seeing a fall in the number of Category 1 incidents,
termed as "very significant," and Category 2 -- known as "moderate incidents"
-- compared with the preceding quarters.
While one Category 1 incident and four Category 2 cases were reported
between July and September 2008, two Category 1 and six Category 2 incidents
were registered in the April-June quarter, said ReCAAP, which stands for
Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against
Ships in Asia.
With 26 incidents reported in the latest quarter, it has overtaken the
preceding quarters, which reported 25 cases in April-June and 20 in
January-March.
Another notable finding was an increase in the number of attacks in the
South East Asian region with 22 incidents reported between July and September
2008 compared with 18 such cases during April-June and 21 in January-March.
"The incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia remained
relatively more prevalent in the South East Asian region compared with the
South Asian region across the first three quarters of 2008," ReCAAP said in
its report.
The number of piracy-related incidents reported from the Straits of
Malacca, through which about one-quarter of the world's traded goods including
oil are transported, increased to six cases between January and September
2008, while only two incidents were reported during the same period last year.
The most apparent drop in the number of attacks on ships was noticed in
Bangladesh and Indonesia between this year during January and September at
nine and 22 cases respectively. In 2007, Indonesia witnessed 34 piracy-related
incidents compared with 12 cases reported in Bangladesh.
However, India, Philippines and Vietnam saw a surfeit of attacks on
vessels this year at 11, six and eight cases respectively from these
countries. While India reported five incidents in 2007, Vietnam and the
Philippines witnessed four and two cases respectively.
--Pradeep Rajan, pradeep_rajan@platts.com