breaking news

A French supertanker set ablaze off Yemen in a mystery explosion was chartered to national oil firm Petronas, the company said today.

"Petronas has been informed that the ship owner and the relevant authorities are still trying to establish the cause of the incident and the extent of the damage," the company said in a statement.

The vessel was loaded with about 400,000 barrels of Arab Heavy crude oil from Saudi Arabia and was on its way to load another 1.5 million barrels of crude in Yemen when the incident occurred, Petronas said.

All measures were being taken to contain oil spillage from the still burning tanker while alternative arrangements had been made to ensure supplies for the Malacca refinery were not disrupted, the company said.

A French diplomat in Sanaa said Sunday's blast was caused by a small boat packed with explosives that rammed the tanker but the French foreign ministry said there was no evidence so far of an attack.

Terrorist-style attack

Yemeni authorities, while playing down the terrorist angle, set up a crisis cell and voiced fears of a major oil slick spreading along the Arabian Sea coast.

"The oil tanker was rammed by a small boat stuffed with explosives," as it came by an offshore terminal some 700 kilometres east of Aden, French Vice Consul Marcel Goncalves told AFP .

"It seems to be an attack in the same style as the USS Cole," he said of the hi-tech destroyer bombed by suspected al-Qaeda militants in Aden harbour on Oct 12, 2000. Seventeen US sailors died and 38 were wounded in that attack.

A gaping hole was blown into the side of the 330-metre-long tanker, named the Limburg and managed by the company France Shipmanagement, the French embassy said.

Twelve of the 25-man crew were hospitalised with injuries in the port city of Al-Mukallah, the embassy added.

Crew member still missing

Yemeni officials said all hands had been rescued and they were passing the night in a hotel.

In France, Limburg owners Euronav, based outside Nantes on the Atlantic coast, said they believed it was a deliberate attack and added that one of the ship's 17 Bulgarian crew was still missing. A Yemeni pilot was most likely missing as well, they said. AFP