The tanker leaking oil onto Omani and Iranian shores has been identified as the Caroline Bezengi, IMO 9224439, Cameroon-flagged, sanctioned by the United States, EU, UK, Canada and Switzerland, and linked through Sun Ship Management to Russia's state shipping company Sovcomflot1. She grounded off Qibliyyah Island on 21 June carrying roughly 800,000 barrels of Russian crude. Oman's Environment Authority reports oil along a 40km strip at Ras Madrakah and expects it to reach Masirah Island, a sea-turtle nesting site, while monsoon weather slows the response2.
That identification puts a named ownership structure behind a slick already ashore in two countries, and it is not a structure a coastal state can easily bill. The chain runs from a Cameroon flag registry through a UAE ship manager to a Russian state company that five jurisdictions have sanctioned. Muscat is mobilising response teams first and will find the payer later, if at all.
Estimates of the slick's extent run from 150 square kilometres to about 500 square miles across trade and wire reporting, and no two agree, so none is printed here as the figure. Oman's Environment Authority keeps adding coastline to its own count as the slick moves towards Masirah.
The war's first confirmed cargo damage and oil spill from a named commercial vessel came in March, when the Sonangol Namibe was struck off Kuwait. This is the second, and it arrived by grounding rather than by weapon. No Iranian statement has connected this hull to Tehran's demand for environmental payment.
