Libyan Coast Guard forces holding a tanker dumping waste inside Libyan territorial waters.

Catogory : Market Report

With the participation of vertical flights, the Coast Guard forces are holding the SANTORINI tanker inside Libyan territorial waters in the northwest of Sousse, where the tanker was dumping waste into Libyan territorial waters.

This is not the first time that the Libyan Coast Guard forces has been able to arrest tankers trying to smuggle Libyan oil out of the country or any carriers into the territorial waters of the Libyan state without taking the permission of the government.

In 2017, the Libyan Coast Guard arrested an oil tanker bearing the Russian flag to the Tripoli naval base, declaring that the tanker was in Libyan waters without permission to smuggle fuel.

In the same year, two oil tankers, one carrying the flag of Ukraine (ROTA), and the other with the flag of an African country the tanker named (STARK), were caught smuggling fuel two kilometers west of the port of Zuwara.

The authorities in western Libya have been leading a security crackdown for several months to curb the activity of fuel smuggling gangs. In April, the National Accord Government’s fuel and gas crisis committee announced the launch of a process called the “Mediterranean Storm” Fuel across the country’s coastline, which cost the state millions of dollars a month.

In August, authorities succeeded in arresting the smuggling king in Libya, who ran smuggling operations across the sea, owns tankers used in smuggling, officials said.