Reportssay a speed boat approached a chemical tanker while underway with an intent toboard the unnamed vessel.
Theship’s second officer raised the alarm and the ship thentook evasive manoeuvres to prevent the boarding.
Theonboard security team reportedly fired warning shots at the boat and thepirates retaliated by returning fire.
Facingresistance the pirates are said to have then aborted their attempt to board thevessel.
Theexchange took place on Wednesday afternoon in position 04:11N – 5:34E some fournautical miles south of the Pennington Oil Terminal.
Details of the latestincident come from the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre.
Thisis the third such reported incident involving a firefight off the coast of Nigeriain as many weeks.
Lastweek robbers attempted to attack the 1,088-gt ro-ro Brenda Corlett (built 1974)in the Calabar Channel, Nigeria.
Theincident resulted in a fire-fight and the subsequent deaths of up to sixattackers when naval forces gave chase and fired upon suspicious speedboats.
Latelast month Nigeria’s navy claimed to have killed twelve suspected pirates in afailed attack on a vessel in the Gulf of Guinea.
Thegun battle is said to have taken place during an attempted hijacking of the StKitts and Nevis-flagged tanker Notre.
UK-basedsecurity consultants AKE Maritime says an increased naval presence has allowedthe Nigerian navy to take a more aggressive stance against piracy.
However,the Hereford-based company said that this had had the adverse effect of pushingmaritime criminality into unpatrolled areas.
Despite the Nigeriannavy’s apparent success AKE said the overall capacity to respond to seriousincidents still remains severely limited.
