TECHNICAL PROBLEMS UNLOADING TANKER

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As we're under threat of some Russian-Iran-Iraq repercussions for confiscating the Russian tanker loaded with Iraqi oil, there are "technical problems" that are preventing the oil from being offloaded. Sounds as if the same variety of problem that plagued those attempting to offload US oil imports last week in the Northeast. Hmmm......still grateful there's no y2k problems...

MUSCAT, Feb 8 (AFP) - The unloading of a Russian tanker suspected by the United States of transporting Iraqi crude oil in violation of UN sanctions was delayed Tuesday for technical reasons, diplomats and oil officials told AFP.

"The unloading should begin on Wednesday," a Russian embassy diplomat in Muscat, who declined to be identified, told AFP.

Installations at the Mina al-Fahl oil terminal in Muscat are incompatible with the pipe system of the Volgoneft-147, an Omani oil official told AFP also on condition of anonymity.

"Special connecting tubes need to be fitted to the pipe system at Mina al-Fahl," he said.

Technicians were working on the problem, he said, but if unloading is not possible at Mina al-Fahl another tanker will be moored next to the Russian one and the 25,000 barrels of gasoil will be transferred from one vessel to the other.

It will take one or two days to unload the gasoil from the tanker, he added.

In the meantime the Volgoneft-147 has been moved from Mina al-Fahl to the nearby Sultan Qaboos commercial port, the official said.

The Sultan Qaboos port is also home to an Omani naval base and naval forces can probably keep the Russian tanker under scrutiny, a source close to the tanker saga told AFP to explain why the move was necessary.

According to the Russian diplomat the tanker, owned by the Moscow-based Transpetro-Volga, was one kilometer (less than a mile) off the coast of Sultan Qaboos port.

The Volgoneft-147 dropped anchor in Mina al-Fahl on Monday after being escorted in by an Omani naval vessel and two coastguard boats.

It was intercepted on Wednesday by the US navy as it left Iranian territorial waters.

The US Fifth Fleet said the tanker had been bound for the United Arab Emirates and passed through Iranian waters after loading with oil in Iraq.

US Defense Secretary William Cohen has said that US tests showed it was carrying oil of Iraqi origin in violation of UN sanctions in force since 1990.

Russian officials initially strongly denounced the interception of the tanker but they have since toned down their protests and said agreement had been reached between Russia and the United States for the oil to be unloaded.

"It is now up to the ship owner to explain the circumstances and details," Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Monday, distancing the authorities from the incident.

Russia further distanced itself from the affair by describing it as a "private commercial" issue.

"If the tanker has broken the law ... then the owner will be held responsible," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze said.

The US State Department said last week that if the oil on the Volgoneft-147 was found to be from Iraq, it would be confiscated and the proceeds put into a special UN account.

Omani officials said that the Volgoneft-147, with a crew of 17 Russians and an Iraqi national, will be free to leave Muscat once the unloading operation is done.

Baghdad has been under embargo since its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

-- (cashtradr@aol.com), February 08, 2000

Answers

Trouble unloading? Hmmm....maybe we oughtta get some of those smart boys from NASA to help with the metric to English conversions on the equipment to smooth out the crinkles here...

Oh, that's right, duh, NASA doesn't understand that conversion stuff either. Oh, well, guess we'll just have to give the boat back then or sink the dang thing...

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 08, 2000.


Yeah - most likely either male-female pipe problems, or metric-ANSI....if a Russian tanker though, it could be using Russian military (Navy) milspec's to allow Russian navy vessels to off-load fuel oil durign a war. (Although they are both metric-based systems, there is absolutely nothing that would require the Russian Navy to use anything common to metric civilian pipe connections. A Russian tanker, though, is almost certainly required to have fittings that a Russian Naval ship could use. Once in a Russian naval port, the Russian-Russian fittings would work.)

---...---

For example, ALL formerly eastern block countries were absolutely required by the Soviets to study Russian languages, print all maps and guidebooks (to museums, on buildings, and public places) and all major books so that they could be read in (by) East Germans, the Russian occupying armies, and then the local language users like Czech, Slovak, Hungarians, etc. These former Soviet conquered countries, and anything made in those countries were geared for first, primarily, and always for war, not economic compatiblilty with foreign tankers.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 08, 2000.


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