An LNG tanker carrying American liquefied natural gas to Italy stopped short of its destination this month, after its crew found they could no longer reach some of the ship’s internal control systems.
The crew reported it as a suspected cyberattack, but what it actually was has not been established.
The Vivit Africa LNG was sailing east through the Mediterranean and into the Adriatic in early September when the failure happened, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information is not public.
The ship remained off the Italian coast without dumping any cargo. On Wednesday, it abandoned its intended destination, the Adriatic LNG terminal near Rovigo, and headed westward towards Algeciras at the mouth of the Mediterranean; it is now near Tunisia.
This information comes from shipping data compiled by Bloomberg.
The Cameron LNG terminal in Louisiana loaded the cargo. The ship belongs to South Korea’s H-Line Shipping, is registered in Liberia, and is on a long-term time charter with Vitol. Vitol did not provide further comment.
The crew reported the incident to Korean Register, the classification society that advises the vessel on technical and safety issues, early last week. The investigation is still ongoing.
H-Line and Korean Register have not yet responded to Bloomberg’s requests for comment.
The Italian version is much more straightforward, and this difference is the focal point of the story.
According to a statement by Captain Roberto D’Arrigo, the Coast Guard provided assistance when the master reported “a malfunction in the systems used to monitor cargo parameters” and requested that the company’s own technicians get involved. The cause could not, however, be determined.
As for the Chioggia Coast Guard, he stated that “it intervened solely for navigation safety reasons”, sending out an urgent notice asking other vessels to stay away.
The ship is equipped with machinery supplied by Kongsberg Maritime, a Norwegian company that provides positioning, navigation, and propulsion systems.
A spokesperson named Jon Berge stated that the company was aware of the reports but that it was “too early to draw conclusions as to the cause or any possible security implications”.
This is the third incident in roughly a month’s time. In late August, the US Coast Guard and the FBI boarded two tankers off the American coast due to possible cyberattacks, and American authorities are currently keeping a close eye on nearly 20 ships around the world for similar threats.
Shipping has, for years, been an unusually easy target, a situation that dates back long before now and is mainly due to outdated onboard systems rather than any geopolitical factors.
What is different this time is the cargo, as the ship that was carrying American gas to a European terminal in the weeks leading up to winter has turned around and sailed back the way it had come, and at present no one concerned has been able to explain why.
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