Pirates believed to be operating from a hijacked Chinese fishing vessel have attacked a Teekay LNG Partners vessel and boarded a tanker in the Gulf of Guinea.
The incident involving the 138,000-cbm LNG carrier Madrid Spirit (built 2004) took place on Monday while the ship was underway 49 nautical miles (91 km) off Sao Tome and Principe.
Security company Ambrey said six pirates in one speedboat opened fire on the ship, aiming towards to the bridge.
The attack continued for 45 minutes but the men failed to board the vessel.
Ambrey said they then aborted the attempt and sped off in the direction of a "black and white tuna boat".
"The criminal syndicate are likely using a Chinese trawler from which to stage attacks," Ambrey said. "The dimensions of the fishing vessel have been listed as 41.68m long and 7.6m wide."
Reports then came in on Tuesday that a tanker had been attacked by a gang off Sao Tome island.
Ambrey, which is withholding the name of the ship, said it had received reports over VHF that the Panama-flagged handysize was targeted 108 nautical miles of Sao Tome island.
The tanker is not transmitting on AIS. The last update was at 0416 GMT, having departed Lome in Togo.
The freeboard is an estimated 3.8 metres.
Piracy reporting body MDAT-GoG has said the ship has been boarded.
Diaplous Maritime Services later reported a military ship was underway to meet the tanker.
It was unclear if the assailants were still on board.
Dryad Global has named the ship as the 10,700-dwt product carrier Maria E (built 2007).
The ship is operated by Lotus Shipping of Greece, which could not immediately comment on the reports.
Fishing vessel hijacked
A Gabon-flagged trawler, the Lianpengyu, was reported boarded and presumed hijacked in the vicinity on Sunday. The vessel has a crew of 14 Chinese seafarers.
The Teekay LNG incident took place 12 hours after a failed attack on Thenamaris' 319,000-dwt VLCC Seaking (built 2005), 87 nautical miles away.
The Seaking had sighted a skiff being launched from a suspected mother vessel nearby, 14 nautical miles south-west of the last sighting of the Lianpengyu.
This skiff came alongside the VLCC and tried to board using ladders, but the attack failed.
The group is also thought likely to be behind the boarding of another tanker on 6 February off Equatorial Guinea.
The crew of the 13,100-dwt Sea Phantom (built 2008) retreated to the citadel and the criminals eventually left the ship.
Security company Dryad Global said the LNG carrier attack was the 12th this year and the fourth recorded outside the Joint War Risk Committee's high risk area.
Dryad views further attacks as highly likely in the coming days.
This story has been updated with further information on the ship boarded.
