Two Saudi oil tankers and a Norwegian-flagged vessel were damaged in a sabotage attack off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
A statement from Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said Monday the Kingdom's two oil tankers, including one due to later carry crude to the US, sustained "significant damage."
The MT Andrea Victory sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from "an unknown object," its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement.
Images Monday of the Andrea Victory, which the company said was "not in any danger of sinking," showed damage similar to what the firm described.
Emirati officials identified the third ship as the Saudi-flagged oil tanker Amjad.
Ship-tracking data showed the vessel still anchored off Fujairah, apparently not in immediate distress.
The fourth ship was the A. Michel, a bunkering tanker flagged in Sharjah, one of the UAE's seven emirates.
Falih said the attacks on the two Saudi tankers happened at 6 a.m. Sunday.
He said "the attack didn't lead to any casualties or oil spill," though he acknowledge it affected "the security of oil supplies to consumers all over the world."
It is "the joint responsibility of the international community to protect the safety of maritime navigation and the security of oil tankers, to mitigate against the adverse consequences of such incidents on energy markets, and the danger they pose to the global economy," he said, according to the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.
