A total of 19 crew members including 13 Indians onboard the Bahamas flag oil tanker MT Strovolos, are being detained by Indonesian authorities at Port Batam. Sources told mid-day that on Saturday, “Marine Police came onboard Strovolos and flashed a Red Corner Interpol notice to arrest the crew members,” for allegedly loading barrels of crude oil without permission to anchor in Indonesian waters. The crew members include 13 Indians, 3 Bangladeshi and 3 Myanmarese. The  Forward Seamen’s Union of India has written to the Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways seeking its intervention to get the Indians home.

MT Strovolos arrived in Kris Energy Apsara Oil Field in Cambodia on November 9, 2020 as a  storage tanker. Drilling commenced and the vessel started receiving crude oil from end of December,” said a source. Most of the crew members have completed their contractual tenure and were ready to go to their countries. “The tanker was chartered to KrisEnergy (Apsara) Co. Ltd. The chartering company loaded the oil which it extracted from the Apsara Oil Field in the Gulf of Thailand. The owners of the vessel understood that the chartering company was contracted by the government of Cambodia as part of a commercial oil development projection and gave it the right to sell the oil. But the KrisEnergy Group ran into financial difficulties. It failed to comply with its obligation to pay hire and when informed by the Master of the vessel that it was running out of fuel, told the owners that they were unable to comply with their obligation to supply the fuel. For the safety of the crew, the cargo and the vessel, and to avoid a potential maritime/environmental casualty the vessel moved to the nearest convenient port to refuel,” said World Tankers, Singapore – the operators of MT Strovolos.