The Iranian government has said it had a court order in place to seize a Chevron VLCC approached and shot at by its forces off Oman on Wednesday.

The 319,000-dwt Richmond Voyager (built 2018) suffered damaged from bullets in the incident.

Iran claimed the ship had collided with an Iranian vessel and the navy had obtained the court order at the request of the Iranian shipowner, according to the Maritime Search and Rescue Centre of Iran’s Hormozgan Province, which was cited by the official IRINN news agency.