A Japanese oil tanker damaged by a freak wave in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping lanes, was making its way to a port in the United Arab Emirates today.
The ship's owners originally reported an explosion onboard and said it may have been caused by an attack but a port official who spoke to the crew said there was no evidence.
No oil leaked from the supertanker, named M Star, although some members of the 31-strong crew were injured, said a general manager at the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates where the ship was due to dock.
"The cause of the incident was a freak wave and there is damage in the upper accommodation decks of the ship and a few injured people on board," he said."The ship is not being tugged and there is no damage to the engine."
He said the ship would be checked and should be able to resume its journey to Japan.
Oman's coastguard cited "a tremor" as the cause of the incident, while an official from the Omani transport ministry said it was "business as usual" in the Strait of Hormuz.
A seismologist in nearby Iran said an earthquake with a magnitude of 3.4 happened in Bandar Abbas.
Earlier, Japan's transport ministry said an "explosion" had occurred on the ship.
"A crew member saw light on the horizon just before the explosion, so (ship owner Mitsui O.S.K.) believes there is a possibility it was caused by an outside attack," Japan's ministry said in a statement.
The were 16 Filipino and 15 Indian crew members on board. The tanker, which is bound for Chiba, near Tokyo, is carrying around 2.3 million barrels of Qatar Land and Abu Dhabi Lower Zakum crudes, industry sources said.
Any impact on the Asian spot crude market would be negligible and the tanker would have taken three weeks to arrive in Japan, traders said.
"This (event) won't stop the flow of crude, so there will be no impact on what is able to be bought," a Tokyo-based crude trader said.
Some 17 million barrels per day of oil flow via the Strait of Hormuz, and Middle East crude accounts for 90 per cent of Japan's total imports.
Reuters