An oil supertanker that Nigeria tried to seize has been stuck off the coast of nearby Equatorial Guinea for more than 10 days, where it was impounded by local authorities.
The Nigerian navy said that its counterparts in Equatorial Guinea arrested the Heroic Idun on 12 August, four days after the same vessel allegedly tried to load a cargo of crude unlawfully from the deepwater Akpo field operated by TotalEnergies. The ship lacked the necessary clearance and left Nigerian waters before being intercepted by the Equatoguinean military, the navy said on 19 August.
The Nigerian navy said that the ship was on hire to trading giant Trafigura Group, but that appears to not be the case, according to a person familiar with the matter. The tanker was on lease to BP from Mercuria Group around the time the navy tried to seize it on 8 April, according to another person with knowledge of the situation.
For its part, Europe’s biggest oil company said it hired the Heroic Idun to collect an Akpo cargo 10 days after the Nigerian navy interrogated the ship but booked another carrier after the Idun was “unable to perform the lifting.”
One potential explanation for the controversy is that the ship didn’t have the right paperwork at the time it arrived.