Malaysia coastguard intercepts missing oil tanker from Singapore blaze

An oil tanker that left the site of a collision and fire east of Singapore had been intercepted off the coast of Malaysia in the early hours of Sunday, Malaysian maritime authorities said.

Ceres I, a crude oil tanker sailing under the flag of Sao Tome & Principe, and the Hafnia Nile, a Singapore-flagged refined-products tanker, crashed early Friday morning in one of the world’s busiest waterways, setting both ablaze. Ceres I appeared to then have switched off its transponder for more than a day, according to Bloomberg ship-tracking data.

After being tracked by Malaysian authorities, Ceres I was intercepted 28 nautical miles off Tioman Island at 1.20am local time on Sunday, pulled by two tug boats, the coastguard said in a statement. All three have been detained.

“Malaysia has successfully located and detained the Ceres I together with two tugboats that were towing it” off the country’s eastern coast, Zin Azman Mohamad Yunus, the coastguard’s search and rescue commander, said in the statement.

An aerial survey detected some traces of a spill, but further checks and an investigation will follow.