Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the US Navy's 5th Fleet, said on November 17 that the MV Sirius Star, a Saudi-owned oil super-tanker, was hijacked by Somali pirates off the Kenyan coast on November 15. The tanker, owned by Saudi oil company Aramco, is 330 meters (1,080 feet), about the length of an aircraft carrier. It can carry about two million barrels of oil. He stated that the Sirius Star was carrying crude at the time of the hijacking, but he did not know what quantity, but, according to some news agency reports, it was carrying crude worth $100 million (about Rs 500 crore). He also did not know where the ship was sailing from and where it was going with the crude.
