A total of 141 incidents have been reported between January and the end of August, according to figures compiled by the Singapore-based Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Centre.
A total of 24 incidents of armed robbery against ships in Asia were reported in August 2015, of which 22 were actual and two were attempted incidents.
"The number of incidents rebounds in August 2015 after a decline of 54% from 24 incidents in June 2015 to 11 in July 2015," said ReCAAP.
Twenty-one of Augusts incidents occurred in Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS) along the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS).
Between 21 and 22 August, within an interval of about 28 hrs, six incidents were reported to have taken place within the TSS.
The other three attacks in August occurred in Batangas Port, Philippines, Vung Tau anchorage, Vietnam and off Kuala Tanjung Centre Jetty, Indonesia.
The most serious incident last month was the hijacking and siphoning of fuel oil from the 3,500-dwt bunker tanker Joaquim (built 1995) in the Malacca Strait.
ReCAAP highlighted in the number of 'Category 3' incidents, namely unauthorised boarding where there were no direct encounter with the crew or economic loss.
August did enjoy some partial success in the battle against the perpetrators of these attacks with the arrest of the alleged mastermind of a recent hijacking.
The Indonesian authorities reported that they had allegedly arrested the person responsible for the attack on the 7,300-dwt tanker Orkim Harmony (built 2009).
