Tanker blast not due to sabotage:PM

Tanker blast not due to sabotage:PM

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's state-owned oil company Petronas does not suspect the explosion aboard a supertanker off Yemen was caused by sabotage, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday.

The French-flagged supertanker Limburg, carrying 400,000 barrels of crude and chartered by Petronas Nasional Bhd, was ablaze off the coast of Yemen after an explosion on Sunday, and the ship's owners said they thought terrorists using a boat could have been responsible.

"Petronas did not suspect any sabotage," Mahathir was quoted by the official Bernama news agency as saying. Mahathir added that the explosion could easily have been caused by a small fire due to a short-circuit.

Petronas did not incur big losses from the fire as the cargo had been insured, he said. --Reuters