Limburg (ship)
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The Limburg was a 2000 built VLCC - oil tanker . The ship became known through an arson attack on October 6, 2002. From 2003 until it was dismantled in Chittagong in 2018 , the double-hulled ship sailed under the name Maritime Jewel .
history
The tanker Limburg was ordered on January 1, 1998 by the Luxembourg company Euronav Luxembourg and handed over in 2000 by the South Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. In 2000, the ship was temporarily transferred to Beaumer SA, also based in Luxembourg, and then transferred to Moray Marine in Singapore again in the same year.
The attack
On October 6, 2002, on a charter voyage from the oil company Petronas from Ra's Tanura in Saudi Arabia , the ship arrived at the Ash Shihr oil terminal in Yemen with a partial load of 57,000 tonnes of Arabian heavy crude, where it received its cargo for Malaysia should complete with another 140,000 tons of crude oil. At eight o'clock in the morning, about three nautical miles from the terminal's loading bin (SBM) , a small vehicle exploded on the starboard side of the Limburg , a little further aft than amidships. A 38-year-old Romanian crew member was killed and another twelve injured. The explosion tore a two-part hole about ten meters long and five meters above the water surface in the side of starboard cargo tank number 4, about seven to eight meters above the keel, and ignited the emerging cargo. About 14,500 cubic meters of oil leaked. The fire burned for around 36 hours and was fought by a tug's extinguishing system.
The damaged ship was later towed to Dubai and repaired there from March 30th to August 10th, 2003 with over 3000 tons of steel. Since the $ 8.5 million repair, the tanker has been known as the Maritime Jewel .
Later research showed that the attack on Limburg is very likely to be attributed to al-Qaeda . Its leader Osama Bin Laden later confessed to planning the attack. On February 3, 2006, Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeiee, who had been sentenced to death for the attack, and 22 other suspected al-Qaida members escaped from prison in Yemen. Including Jamal al-Badawi, who is credited with planning the attack on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, and 13 other participants in the Cole attack. On October 1, 2006, al-Rabeiee was shot dead by Yemeni security forces while attacking two buildings in Sanaa.
Environmental damage
Various organizations such as ITOPF, CEDRE or Bureau Enquête Accidents Mer, in cooperation with the Yemeni authorities, assessed the damage on site. This stretched over an approximately 70 km long stretch of coast from Riyan Airport to Mayfa. Most of the pollution levels were assessed as low to moderate, and a few small areas as severe. The volume that polluted the coast was estimated at 300 to 400 cubic meters of highly viscous residues of the burned oil.
scrapping
On April 8, 2018, the ship arrived at the dismantling yards near Chittagong , Bangladesh, where it was scrapped from May 15, 2018.
Trivia
The final scene of the American political thriller Syriana with George Clooney takes up the motif of the bomb attack on an oil tanker.
Individual evidence
- ^ Yemen ship attack was terrorism BBC, October 13, 2002. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
- ↑ MARITIME JEWEL scrapped Vesseltracker , last entry May 15, 2018. Accessed March 23, 2019.
- ↑ Limburg data on Miramar Ship Index (English) (chargeable login required)