Iran released a fuel tanker on Wednesday that it had seized in the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the 21-person crew “safe and in good spirits,” according to the vessel’s manager. The fate of its cargo is unknown.
Iran seized the vessel, which was headed to Singapore from the United Arab Emirates, on Friday for carrying what it called “unauthorized cargo,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy said in a statement to state media.
Before the vessel was seized, it was carrying a cargo of high-sulfur gas oil, which is used primarily as fuel for marine vessels, according to the tanker’s manager, Columbia Shipmanagement, a maritime company based in Cyprus. After its release, the tanker was in “ballast condition,” meaning it had little to no cargo, the company said in a statement.
Debra Edwins, a spokeswoman representing Columbia Shipmanagement, said it was “not in a position to provide commercial details” about what happened to the cargo on the ship, which was sailing with a Marshall Islands flag. The company said in a statement that “no allegations were made against the vessel, her crew and the vessel’s managers and owners” and that it was now free to “resume normal operations.”
The U.S. Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of South Asia, said in a statement on Sunday that the vessel was seized illegally after Iranian forces arrived by helicopter and steered the tanker to Iranian waters.
“Iran’s use of military forces to conduct an armed boarding and seizure of a commercial vessel in international waters constitutes a blatant violation of international law, undermining freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce,” the statement said.
Iran has periodically seized tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow, 90-mile waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that is a crucial global shipping route. In January 2024, Iran’s navy seized a tanker loaded with crude oil off the coast of Oman, apparently in retaliation for the United States’ having confiscated oil from the same ship in 2023. A quarter of the world’s oil and 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas pass through the strait, which Tehran has long threatened to shut.
Pranav Baskar is an international reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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