Supertanker Agios Fanourios I is heading for Vietnam to discharge its Iraqi crude oil cargo after it was held by the US Navy for five days in the Gulf of Oman, the vessel's manager said on Monday.
The Maltese-flagged very large crude carrier sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz on May 10 and was sailing in the Gulf of Oman before making a U-turn on May 11.
It resumed its journey towards Vietnam on May 16 and is expected to arrive at the Nghi Son refinery on May 30, LSEG shipping data showed.
A source at the vessel's Athens-based manager Eastern Mediterranean Maritime, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the tanker was sailing on to Vietnam after it had received US Navy approval.
The US military's Central Command said last week that the vessel was redirected as part of ongoing enforcement of the blockade against Iran. At least two other crude tankers sailed from the strait last week, but overall crude traffic through the strait has remained limited.
Before the war on Iran began, the Strait of Hormuz was the conduit for 20 per cent of the world's energy supplies, equating to 125 to 140 daily passages.
"Shipping confidence around Hormuz is still very weak," ship broker Clarksons said in a note on Monday.
A further 12 ships crossed the strait in the past 24 hours, including two liquefied petroleum gas tankers bound for India, according to satellite analysis from data analytics specialists SynMax.
A separate LPG tanker was sailing through the strait on Monday also bound for India, data on the MarineTraffic platform showed.
(Reporting by Florence Tan, Jonathan Saul and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Mark Porter and Barbara Lewis)
