Salem was a supertanker which was scuttled off the coast of Guinea on 17 January 1980, after secretly unloading 192,000 tons of oil in Durban, South Africa.
Four days after leaving the port of Mina Al Ahmadi, the charterers in Genoa sold the cargo to the Shell Group for [US$]56 million.
When the British tanker British Trident rescued the shipwrecked Salem crew, it was observed that not only had the crew taken all their belongings in suitcases but they had gone so far as to rescue a number of other items including duty-free goods and sandwiches, although the tanker was supposed to have sunk so quickly, after several explosions, that there was not enough time to save the ship's log.
Far more striking was that, despite the ostensible cargo of nearly 200,000 tons of crude oil and having suffered sufficient explosion damage to cause her to sink, there was barely a trace of the vessel left on the surface.
Research by Lloyd's revealed that the South African oil company Sasol, had bought the Lema / Salem cargo in Durban for US$43 million.