Tehran: An Iranian oil tanker on Wednesday broke down in the Red Sea near Saudi Arabia but its crew are safe and carrying out repairs.
Citing the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), the oil ministry's website said, "The HELM suffered a "technical fault" about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the Saudi port of Yanbu on Tuesday."
"The crew of the tanker are busy fixing the defect and the vessel is in a stable situation from a safety standpoint," the NITC's technical director Akbar Jabalameli was quoted as saying.
The crew of the tanker was safe and "in full readiness to solve the problem", he added.
TankerTrackers.com, which monitors ship movements, said that the HELM was carrying 1.3 million barrels of crude oil and heading towards the Suez Canal from the Iranian island of Kharg.
The vessel appears on the US Treasury's website in a list of entities subject to American sanctions.
It is the second such Iranian breakdown in recent months after the tanker Happiness 1 was forced to seek repairs in the Saudi port of Jeddah port that reportedly cost the Islamic republic USD 10 million.
The incident came days after another Iranian oil tanker, the Adrian Darya sailed after being released by the British overseas territory of Gibraltar despite a US bid to detain it.
Forces of US ally Britain had helped to seize the Iran-flagged tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4 over allegedly breaching European Union sanctions by carrying oil shipment to Syria.
But a court in the British territory ordered its release last week and the ship began sailing eastward on Sunday night but its final destination is unknown.
Iran and its arch-foe the US have been at loggerheads since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew Washington from a landmark nuclear deal last year and began reimposing sanctions against the Islamic republic.
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