Updated
The Australian Air Force is on the trail of a Malaysian-registered tanker that disappeared a week ago in a suspected hijacking, the South-East Asian country's navy chief says.
Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar said Malaysian and Australian aircraft were shadowing the MT Orkim Harmony, which vanished last Thursday off the south-eastern Malaysian state of Johor, along with its 22-member crew.
The tanker was seen in Vietnamese waters headed south with the Malaysian navy vessel KD Terengganu and a maritime ship in pursuit.
Local media reported earlier it had been detected in Cambodian waters.
"We have found the vessel and RMAF (Royal Malaysian Air Force), MMEA (Malaysian coast guard) and RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) aircraft are tailing it from the air," Mr Jaafar was quoted as saying by the state-run Bernama news agency.
Mr Jaafar said on Twitter a Malaysian naval vessel was trying to persuade the pirates aboard to surrender.
He said that at least eight perpetrators were on board the hijacked tanker armed with pistols and machetes.
Both the crew and cargo were safe and the navy was in the midst of negotiations with the robbers, officials from the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) confirmed in a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur.
"From our experience, as long as there's no situation that alarms the criminals, the crew will be safe," Ahmad Puzi, deputy director general of the operations unit of MMEA, said.
"We are using a soft approach first, trying to advise them to surrender," he said.
He added the mood of the negotiations was "good".
The MT Orkim Harmony is believed to be carrying 6,000 tonnes of petrol valued at 21 million ringgit ($7.2 million).
Its crew included 16 Malaysians, five Indonesians and one Myanmar national.
The vessel was en route from the port of Malacca on the west coast of Malaysia to Kuantan on the South China Sea. The ship's owners were last in contact with it on June 11.
South-East Asia becoming 'piracy hotspot'
The London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has repeatedly warned the waters of South-East Asia are becoming the world's piracy hotspot.
The IMB said pirates were increasingly preying on slow-moving small coastal tankers and one attack was occurring every two weeks.
Typically, armed pirates seize control of the ships and syphon off their cargoes of diesel or gas oil to other vessels before later releasing the tankers and crews.
South-East Asia saw 38 pirate attacks between January to March, or 70 per cent of the global total of 54 attacks, the IMB said in an April report.
It called the frequency of regional incidents "an increasing cause for concern".
Piracy in the region was significantly reduced in the previous decade by stepped-up regional cooperation and maritime patrols.
Much of the world's trade passes through South-East Asian shipping lanes such as the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia.
The IMB said last December pirates shot dead a crew member on a Vietnamese tanker off the eastern coast of Malaysia, but most attacks ended with no reports of casualties.
AFP/Reuters
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