Pirates have boarded a second product tanker in the Gulf of Guinea near Cote d'Ivoire, International Security Services has warned.
The latest pirate attack in the northern region of the gulf is believed to have taken place in a similar position to where another tanker was boarded at the beginning of 2023, but far from where the Danish-owned tanker, Monjasa, was attacked just over two weeks ago.
British-French security monitoring organisation, Maritime Domain Awareness for Trade Gulf of Guinea (MDAT-GoG), issued a warning of heightened risk in the region, announcing that it believed an unknown number of pirates had boarded the product tanker about 300 nautical miles south of Abidjan.
MDAT-GoG classified the incident as an "ongoing situation" but has not provided any further details at this stage.
Security consultants Praesidium also issued a piracy attack security incident report, announcing that the boarding allegedly happened at around 4pm (GMT).
The Maritime Executive reported that the security consultants identified the tanker as the Singapore-flagged Success 9, a 6 135 deadweight tonnage (dwt) tanker owned by HS Ocean of Singapore.
Automatic identification system data indicates that the vessel was located off Abidjan since late March.
Praesidium data showed that the vessel's speed started to decelerate at around 08:00 and that by about 4:30pm it was drifting when the AIS transmission was lost, suggesting this was when the pirates took control of the vessel.
It believes the tanker has been operating for some time as a bunker vessel in the region, which has recently been hit by several incidents of pirates boarding tankers to pillage oil.
Security services company EOS Risk Group has suggested that a mothership was used to launch the latest attack, as the location is beyond the normal range of local skiffs.
The company warned that the ship could be used to launch additional attacks or to receive stolen cargo in the region.
The 5 700 dwt B. Ocean product tanker, owned by a South Korean company, was attacked repeatedly during 2022 and 2023, when pirates stole oil and damaged the ship's equipment before fleeing.
Meanwhile, the six crew members kidnapped by pirates after they boarded and fled the Monjasa more than two weeks ago have still not been found.