Oil tanker incident
Sanchi
6 January 2018
East China Sea
What happened
The Panamanian-flagged condensate tanker Sanchi collided with the Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier CF Crystal in the East China Sea, catching fire and drifting for over a week before exploding and sinking. All 32 crew members were lost. This was an accidental maritime casualty, not an attack.
When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.
- Vessel / facility
- Condensate tanker
- Cargo
- ≈136,000 tonnes of ultra-light crude condensate
- Attack
- Accidental collision with bulk carrier CF Crystal; fire, explosions and sinking (not an attack)
- Latitude
- 28.7500°
- Longitude
- 125.7200°
Attribution
Responsibility has not been established in the cited reporting.
Approximate collision position, roughly 160 nautical miles off Shanghai.