The seizure of a German gas tanker by Somali pirates, just as the Gulf of Aden coastal states concluded a meeting on piracy, indicates that tightened security around shipping in the region is having only limited success. The hijacking of the MV Longchamp on Thursday will only reinforce a trend in the global shipping industry to avoid the Gulf of Aden as a shortcut to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, adding delays and costs to the industry at a time of a dramatic slowdown in global trade.
Moreover, the hijacked tanker's highly flammable cargo of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) posed a deadly risk to its kidnapped crew and anyone attempting to free the vessel, analysts said. At 4,316 deadweight tonnes, the captured vessel is not especially large, but its cargo "is posing security problems for all involved, especially since Somali pirates have previously shown themselves ready to open fire close to crude, petroleum products and chemical tankers," said Samuel Ciszuk, the Middle East energy analyst at the consulting firm, IHS Global Insight. "Unless the hijackers understand what type of product they are dealing with, there is a very high risk of a disastrous outcome."
LPG is a mixture of propane, butane and other fuel gases compressed into a liquid state. A common fuel for gas stoves, one of its features is that it can be easily ignited. Beyond the safety risk to anyone in the tanker's vicinity, the latest incident poses a wider threat to the global energy trade. It follows the hijacking last November of the Saudi oil tanker, Sirius Star. That vessel - the largest captured by Somali pirates - was released on Jan 10, along with its 25-member crew, after the pirates received US$3 million (Dh11m) of the $25m they had demanded in ransom.
But before that, a number of shipping companies reacted to the incident by diverting shipping around the Cape of Good Hope from the shorter route through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, pushing up transport costs by adding two to three weeks to a typical voyage. Insurance rates for shipping cargoes through the Gulf of Aden have also increased because of the piracy surge, adding a further deterrent to using the maritime shortcut.
As a result, traffic through the Suez Canal has declined even more sharply than would have resulted from falling global trade volumes. Egypt's December revenues from the canal were 8 per cent lower than a year earlier. Still, an international naval effort to protect shipping off Africa's east coast may have helped to reduce the success rate of pirate attacks to between 25 and 30 per cent, compared with about 50 per cent last year, according to Roger Middleton, a consultant researcher for Chatham House, the London-based think tank.
However, weather conditions had recently caused problems for pirates operating off the Horn of Africa, so it was probably too early to tell, he added. In any case, said Mr Middleton, the problem remained intractable, as the pirates' financial motivation was high. . The MV Longchamp was under naval escort when it was attacked, according to the vessel's owner, Hamburg-based MPC Steamship. The International Maritime Bureau said there had been 15 pirate attacks this month in the Gulf of Aden, of which three were successful. Somali pirates are currently holding 10 vessels, including the German tanker.
Representatives of coastal states in the affected region resolved at a meeting in Djibouti last week to establish three information centres - in Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Sanaa - and a regional training centre in Djibouti, to co-ordinate anti-piracy activities. @Email:tcarlisle@thenational.ae
