BP oil tanker shelters in Persian Gulf on fear of Iran retaliation

LONDON (Bloomberg) --An oil tanker, run by BP, is being kept inside the Persian Gulf in fear it could be seized by Iran in a tit-for-tat response to the arrest by Gibraltar last week of a vessel hauling the Islamic Republic’s crude.

The British Heritage, able to haul about 1 MMbo, was sailing toward Iraq’s Basrah oil terminal in the south of country when it made an abrupt u-turn on July 6. It’s now off Saudi Arabia’s coast and a person with knowledge of the matter says BP’s concern is that it could become a target if Iran seeks to retaliate for the seizure near Gibraltar—by British Royal Marines—of the tanker Grace 1 on Thursday.

The ship, registered in the Isle of Man and flying under the British flag, had been chartered by Royal Dutch Shell to transport crude from Basrah to northwest Europe, tracking data and shipbrokers said. It didn’t collect that cargo and the booking was canceled.

British Heritage won’t be able to exit the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which about a third of global seaborne oil moves, without sailing close to Iran’s coast, thereby placing it at greater risk.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister said on Sunday he considered the seizure by Gibraltar to be an act of piracy, while a former leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the Islamic Republic should take a British tanker in response.