The United States faced an against-the-clock legal battle to reseize an Iranian supertanker caught in a diplomatic standoff before the vessel’s shipping agent said on Saturday he would go ahead with the ship’s planned departure from Gibraltar.

Fox News reports that the head of the company sorting paperwork and procuring for the Grace 1 oil tanker in the British overseas territory said the vessel could be sailing away in the next “24 to 48 hours,” once new crews dispatched to the territory take over command of the ship.

“The vessel is ongoing some logistical changes and requirements that have delayed the departure,” Astralship managing director Richard De la Rosa told The Associated Press.

He said the new crews were Indian and Ukrainian nationals hired by the Indian managers of the ship and that his company had not been informed about the supertanker’s next destination.

The tanker, which carries 2.1 million tons of Iranian light crude oil, had been detained for over a month in Gibraltar for allegedly attempting to breach European Union sanctions on Syria. The arrest fuelled tension between London and Tehran, which seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz in apparent retaliation.

Analysts had said the release of the Grace 1 by Gibraltar could see Britain’s Stena Impero go free.

But late on Friday, a day after the tanker was released from detention, the US obtained a warrant to seize the vessel over violations of US sanctions, money laundering and terrorism statutes. Washington is seeking to take control of the oil tanker, all of the petroleum aboard and $995,000, unsealed court documents showed.

The latest turn of events come as tensions continue to rise in the Persian Gulf since President Donald Trump last year unilaterally pulled the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal signed by Iran and other world powers. In recent weeks, oil tankers in the region have been the subject of attacks and seizures, dragging among others London and Tehran into a bitter diplomatic row.

The Gibraltar Supreme Court didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the US request had been filed there. Britain’s Foreign Office deferred questions to the government of Gibraltar, but calls and emails to its offices on how authorities planned to respond to Washington’s move went unanswered.

Messages left with the US Embassy in London were not immediately returned.

This story first appeared on Fox News and has been republished here with permission