Indian authorities have asked an Indian-flagged oil tanker not to discharge about 6.5 lakh barrel oil which it is carrying from eastern Libya, controlled by an unrecognised government.
"The vessel acquired Indian flag recently. It has been asked not to move from Malta and not to offload cargo till further instructions. This will be done in accordance with instructions from the UN. The ship has 6,50,000 barrel of crude," Director General of Shipping Deepak Shetty told PTI.
The direction came after the oil tanker was added to a UN sanctions blacklist for illegally carrying crude from Libya.
Libyan UN Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi had written to 15-member sanctions committee for blacklisting Distya Ameya tanker.
The ship left Marsa el-Hariga port on Monday from eastern Libya, where the unrecognized government was behind the sale of the crude.
The oil tanker is returning to Libya, Libya's rival oil corporation said on Thursday, after its failed first attempt to export crude oil led to the ship being blacklisted.
The Distya Ameya tanker is heading to the western Libyan port of Zawiya, said Nagi al-Maghrabi, chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) set up by Libya's rival eastern government in parallel to the Tripoli-based NOC. The Tripoli NOC is recognised internationally as the legitimate seller of Libyan oil.
Magrabi told Reuters he would continue to fight for the right of the eastern NOC to export crude, describing the situation as "a legal issue and we will work on it."
The Tripoli NOC and its international backers say that if the eastern government succeeds in its long-held aim of selling oil independently, it would undermine a U.N.-backed unity government that arrived in Tripoli last month and put the political and economic future of Libya at risk.
The UN Security Council Libya sanctions committee blacklisted the Distya Ameya on Wednesday after receiving a request from Dabbashi. This requires states to ban it from entering any port.
The ship left Libya's Marsa el-Hariga port late on Monday carrying 650,000 barrels of crude and was currently near Malta. A source close to the situation said the cargo was to be offloaded at Zawiya and processed for use within the country.
(Agencies)
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