SINGAPORE (20 Oct 2005) -- Indonesian navy divers have discovered a shipload of refined tin worth $4.7 million that was hijacked by pirates late last month, and the owner -- PT Koba Tin -- is salvaging the cargo, officials said on Thursday. The vessel M.V. Prima Indah, which was carrying 660 tonnes of tin produced by Koba when it was attacked en route to Singapore, was spotted last week on the sea bed off Bangka, the Indonesian island where it began its journey. Crew members were unharmed but the incident was the second tin seizure in Indonesian waters this year. On the same route in April, pirates hijacked a cargo of at least 575 tonnes, estimated to be worth about $4.6 million and since retrieved by its owner. "We don't understand why the pirates sank the ship. There are a lot of questions but we cannot speculate," said Noel Choong, who manages the International Maritime Bureau's Southeast Asian piracy reporting center in Malaysia. A Koba Tin official on Bangka, where most of Indonesia's tin is mined and smelted, confirmed the cargo had been discovered but declined to give more details. | | Koba Tin is owned by Malaysia Smelting Corp. Bhd. and is Indonesia's second-largest producer of the metal used in electronics and as a lead-free substitute in solder. State-run PT Timah, the country's top producer, has a 25 percent stake inKoba. "The company is now in the process of salvaging the ship and the cargo," said Choong, adding it was unclear whether the cargo was damaged. The amount is equivalent to about a third of Koba's monthly output. |
