MT Stolt Valor
"It was not only an ordeal but also a nightmare for all of us on board the Stolt Valor." (Captain Prabhat Kumar Goyal, November 16, 2008)
The MT Stolt Valor is a Hong Kong-flagged ship that was hijacked while in the Designated Safety Corridor within the Gulf of Aden, approximately 38 nautical miles (70 km) away from the coast of Yemen, while heading from the United States south through the Gulf towards Asia. After the ship passed through the Suez Canal, it apparently encountered the hijackers and alerted the International Maritime Bureau. Area coalition forces arrived too late to avert the hijacking which occurred at 10:16 GMT on September 15, 2008 by Somali pirates.
The Japanese-owned chemical tanker, managed by Fleet Management Ltd. of Hong Kong, and on time charter to Stolt Tankers, carried a crew of 22 members, including eighteen from India, two from the Philippines, one from Bangladesh, and one from Russia according to Fleet's spokesman, Ferdi Stolzenberg. The ship's captain is Prabhat Kumar Goyal of Teg Bahadur Road, Dehradun. The ship was carrying 19,800 metric tons of phosphoric acid, loaded in Morehead City, North Carolina, USA, at time of capture.
Following capture, the Stolt Valor made way to the pirate haven of Eyl on the eastern coast of Somalia. The pirates made contact with the ship's owners the following day, September 16. The ship's Master, through email and phone, stated that his crew was unharmed and confined to the ship’s wheelhouse.
Read more about MT Stolt Valor: Ransom, Release, 2012 Fire, Scrap, See Also
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