Jakarta. Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office will auction an Iranian-flagged oil tanker and its cargo of 166,975.36 metric tons of light crude oil -- equivalent to 1.2 million barrels -- beginning December 2, prosecutors announced on Sunday.

The auction’s reserve value has been set at Rp 1.17 trillion ($70 million), with a mandatory security deposit of Rp 118 billion ($7 million). Bidders may participate via the government auction platform lelang.go.id.

Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Anang Supriatna said the object on offer includes both the vessel and the oil onboard. The tanker, MT Arman 114, built in South Korea in 1997, was seized under a Batam District Court ruling issued on July 10, 2025.

MT Arman 114 was confiscated as evidence in a marine-pollution case, in which the ship’s captain, Mohammed Abdelaziz Mohamed Hatiba, was convicted for dumping waste at sea. The court ordered that the vessel and its cargo be seized for the state. Abdelaziz was sentenced to seven years in prison and a Rp 5 billion fine.

The investigation began after a patrol by the Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) detected two tankers that had switched off their automatic identification systems and were moored alongside each other.

Aerial monitoring using an unmanned aircraft recorded a pipeline connection between the ships and an oil spill coming from MT Arman 114. The two tankers -- MT Arman 114 and MT S Tinos, the latter flagged to Cameroon -- were suspected of conducting illegal ship-to-ship oil transfer operations.

According to prosecutors, eligibility to participate in the auction is restricted to companies licensed to process or trade oil and gas, or contractors permitted under the regulations of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

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