Turkey's Tupras confirms St Nikolas was carrying Iraqi crude from SOMO

Turkey's Tupras confirmed that the vessel St Nikolas, which was seized in waters off the Omani coast by Iranian forces on Thursday morning, was loaded with an Iraqi crude cargo from Basra that was sold by Iraq's state-owned marketer SOMO, it said in a statement.

"The mentioned tanker carries approximately 140 thousand tons of crude oil, which was purchased by Tupras, from the Iraqi state oil company SOMO and was en route from the port of Basra to our refinery," Tupras told Reuters.