Tanker ‘broke S.A. oil ban?

Press, 9 April 1980, Page 9

Tanker ‘broke S.A. oil ban ?

NZPA Johannesburg The 109,000 tonne supertanker Albahaa B which sank off Tanzania last Thursday after an explosion was returning to the Middle East after delivering 70,000 tonnes of oil to South Africa, and was not on its way from Dubai to Singapore as reported by Lloyd’s, the London insurance firm,' the “Rand Daily Mail,” has said. South Africa is officially subject to a seven-year-old oil embargo by the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries and, since the Shah’s overthrow last year, by Iran also. The paper quoted Michael Steele, head of the Hong Kong-based firm, Wallem>; Ship Management, which owned the tanker, as saying that the ship left a Middle Eastern port in early March ; and arrived in Durban with

the oil at the end of last month.

“There is no mystery about the ship,” he said. “She was chartered by a South African company and this was a normal scheduled run.”

Six members of the Albahaa B’s crew were lost and 37 others rescued after the explosion. A few months ago the super tanker Salem also exploded and sank off the coast of Senegal. It was later revealed that the ship had secretly delivered oil at Durban from the Middle East," entering the port under a false name. South Africa publishes no information about where it gets it oil and the South African press has been banned for some time from mentioning the case of the Salem. The Government has stepped up. efforts, to develop an oil supply from coal, oil, shale, and methanol, having no oil of its own.