Iranian Oil Tanker Burns For Third Day As Winds, High Waves Lash Rescuers

Rigzone ^ | January 09, 2018 | Reuters Staff

[Rabin]

BEIJING, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The Iran's Sanchi’ running 136,000 tonne ultra-light condensate, (in) an off record run, up the west China coast. In dark, rough seas just north of the Yang, Sanchi was rammed by US CF Crystal, carrying grain.

Any chances of taming the fire or saving any of the 31 (all Iranian nationals except for two Bangladeshi) tanker crew members, is slim the Ministry of Transport said Tuesday… The flames are forcing South Korean Coast Guard to stay miles from the tanker.

[Rabin]

The CF Crystal suffered limited damage and the 21 crew members, all Chinese nationals, were rescued.

R.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Overall, it’s couldn’t be funnier.

[Steven W.]

I've been wondering what registry this other vessel would prove to be - appears she is a former Chinese cargo ship sailing out of Hong Kong: CF Crystal IMO:9497050 ... I figured the Iranian ship was heading for NK but now I'm wondering if it was only crude on board: "Chinese state media CCTV showed footage on Monday of boats dousing the flames with water as plumes of thick dark smoke continued to billow from the tanker. ... 'The fire was so fierce. It kept exploding like bombs. So loud'"

[Paul R.]

Condensate is pretty volatile stuff. Much more so than typical “crude”. I would NOT want to be on that ship...

And, the tanker was headed to S. Korea. That’s not to say it’s impossible the Iranians might have tried to slip a little condensate to N. Korea, but, I would have to guess the S. Korean customer would be a wee bit upset, and the S. Korean gov’t would be in excellent position to seize the ship (as they have in a couple instances.) Well, less the ramming, anyway...

[lefty-lie-spy]

I had to do some research on “ultra-light condensate” to figure out what we are talking about here since the author is too lazy to explain what it means. Apparently, it’s basically a liquid byproduct of natural gas extraction that is used as precursor material in gasoline or ethanol production, or in solvents and similar materials. I guess it could be used in plastics and other chemistry as well. I wish they just said “a light form of a natural gasoline derived from natural gas wells known as ultra-light condensate” in the first place.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

If the Iranians were “trying to slip a little condensate to No. Korea”, (a good possibility), one way would be to overload the ship but put fake tonnage figures on the shipping manifest.

Therefore anything offloaded to a N. Korean tanker or even at a small port, would not show up on any tonnage figures when the condensate would be delivered to So. Korea.

This has been done before with other items, so why not oil?

[Secret Agent Man]

I don’t know why but now I want fried rice.

[jmacusa]

‘’Lash’’. Boy, that’s 18th. century for you.

[jmacusa]

Yeah. Me too. Pork fried. Dang it though, there isn’t a Chinese joint open at this hour.

[Paul R.]

Right. I think it might be better described as a light form of petroleum, somewhat similar to gasoline, but you are essentially on the right track. Condensate is also sometimes used to thin heavy oils for transport in pipelines and such.

Even if the author had just said something like “dangerously volatile condensate”, that would have improved the description of the situation.

It definitely is not something one wants a ship full of burning, especially if one is on the ship!