U.S. authorities agree to supertanker loading

Press, 29 July 1987, Page 10

U.S. authorities agree to supertanker loading

NZPA-Reuter Washington Kuwait received United States approval yesterday to load crude oil aboard the mine-damaged supertanker Bridgeton for a return trip out of the Gulf under American Naval escort late this week, informed shipping sources said. They said the United States Coast Guard had given verbal assurances that the 401,382-ton Bridgeton, reflagged last week under the Stars and Stripes, could load following approval by the vessel’s insurers, the American Bureau of Shipping. Formal Coast Guard approval was expected later after Kuwait revealed the amount of oil to be taken aboard.

Shipping sources said the Bridgeton would be able to load about 260,000 tonnes of oil, about twothirds its capacity, to deliver to customers waiting outside the Gulf off the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The tanker was holed in the week-end on its maiden voyage under the American flag to Kuwait in spite of elaborate precautions and a threewarship United States

escort. Because the ship is American registered, the United States Coast Guard was obliged to certify its sea-worthiness before it could load. Shipping sources believed United States Naval experts were conducting a mine survey in a narrow deep-water channel near Iran’s Farsi Island where the Bridgeton was damaged 240 km southeast of Kuwait. They would then advise the safest route out of the Gulf. United States officials say the mine that holed the Bridgeton was almost certainly laid by Iran as part of its moves against shipping linked with Kuwait, a supporter of Teheran’s war enemy Iraq. The mine tore a 9m by 3m hole in one of the cargo tanks and cracked three others. Iran has bitterly criticised Kuwait’s move to place 11 of its tankers under the. United States flag to gain them American Naval protection against attack. Kuwait has also chartered Soviet tankers and vessels flying the flag of Britain’s Gibraltar colony. Teheran Radio has quoted Iran’s president,

Ali Khameney as saying his country would strike with surface-to-surface missiles if Kuwait continued “its acts of mischief in the Gulf.”

The shipping sources said divers had patched a crack in the Bridgeton’s forward ballast tank, leaving only a bunker tank and two cargo tanks out of use.

They said the crude oil cargo would be distributed through the vessel to cause minimum stress when it travels at reduced speed — eight or nine knots — to the Strait of Hormuz and out of the Gulf.

The sources expected the Bridgeton and the smaller gas carrier Gas Prince to sail later this week escorted by United States warships now lying off Bahrain.

The Gas Prince, now berthed at the main oil port of Mina al-Ahmadi, was expected to finish loading its propane and butane cargo bound for Japan today. The United States, meanwhile, sought to strengthen its anti-mine capability in the Gulf and officials in Washington said it was considering sending three Navy minesweeping helicopters.

Shipping sources said the current mine-hunting operations near Oarsi Island were probably being carried out with sonar equipment on United States helicopters operating from American warships already in the area. Diplomats said Kuwait and the United States were anxious to enlist the help of Saudi Arabia’s four minesweepers, two of which participated in an early mine clearing operation in the channel leading to Mina al-Ah-madi. The Kuwaiti Defence Minister, Sheikh Salem alSabah, received a letter from his Saudi counterpart Prince Sultan ibn Abdulaziz on the latest Gulf developments and bilateral military ties, the Kuwait News Agency K.U.N.A. reported. It gave no details, but Saudi Arabia said on Sunday the minesweepers were only for use in territorial waters.

Diplomats said that in the absence of bases in either Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, the United States would have to fly minesweeping helicopters from its own naval fleet, now numbering 15 warships in and around the Gulf.