By James Cordahi and Sean Evers
Sana, Yemen, Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- A French oil tanker was rammed by a small boat packed with explosives as it was about to load at a Yemeni port in the Gulf of Aden, Agence France-Presse reported, citing French Vice-Consul Marcel Goncalves.
Yemeni officials said the blast was an accident, the state- owned Saba news agency reported. Twelve of the Linbourg's 25 crew members have been rescued from the burning ship; thick smoke is hampering efforts to reach the others, Saba said.
The ship was about to load oil at a terminal close to the town of Al-Shihr in Yemen's Hadramaut province when the explosion occurred, Qatar's Al-Jazeera television news station said. Al-Shihr is about 450 miles east of the port of Aden, where the warship USS Cole was attacked in 2000, killing 17 sailors.
``It seems to be an attack in the same style as the USS Cole,'' Goncalves told AFP. The U.S. has said Osama bin Laden's al- Qaeda network carried out the Cole attack.
Goncalves was too busy to comment further, an assistant told Bloomberg News when reached by phone at the French embassy in Yemen. The assistant, who declined to give his name, wouldn't confirm that the explosion stemmed from an attack.
Oil Prices
The Linbourg, owned by French Ship Management, may have sunk, Goncalves said, according to AFP. A spokeswoman for the French foreign ministry couldn't immediately comment. No one answered calls at the defense ministry.
The tanker is carrying almost 400,000 barrels of Iranian crude, taken on at Iran's Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, Saba said, citing Yemeni officials. Eight of the crew are French nationals and the rest are from Bulgaria, said France's military attache in Yemen, Colonel Vial, on LCI television
Today's explosion may boost oil prices on concern that supplies from the Middle East, which accounts for about a quarter of world total, are under threat. Crude oil has climbed close to 50 percent this year, partly on concern that that the U.S. may go to war against Iraq.
``This will certainly affect prices, but for the time being oil flows will continue -- you can't blow up the demand for oil,'' said Shervin Limbert, general manager of Gulf Interstate Oil Co., which buys and sells oil in the Gulf region.
`Extreme Caution'
On Sept. 10, the U.S. Navy said al-Qaeda may attack oil tankers in the Middle East. The Navy had no details on the timing or means, but ``the threat should be regarded seriously,'' spokesman Jeff Alderson said at the time.
Ship captains should exercise ``extreme caution'' in passageways such as the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the open sea, and Bab al-Mandeb at the bottom of the Red Sea, Alderson said.
Royal Dutch/Shell Group and other international companies shipping oil out of the Persian Gulf have been warned by U.K. intelligence that tankers are becoming target of attack, a person familiar with the matter said.
The U.K. intelligence agency suggested that allied naval forces in the region should escort oil tankers in convoys to deter any attack on oil shipping, the person said. Escorting oil tankers around the Middle East would be a ``daunting task,'' Commander Frank Merriman, a U.S. military spokesman said.
Iran and Iraq attacked each other's oil tankers during their war in the mid 1980s, eventually leading to U.S. Navy military escorts of tanker exports from other Gulf nations.
About 13 million barrels of crude oil a day is exported by ship through the Persian Gulf, which narrows to 2 mile-wide shipping channels at the Straits of Hormuz, according to the U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.
-- Anonymous, October 06, 2002