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I'll chime in here...
The main aim of most of the pirates isn't the cargo, which in the case of crude oil would be VERY difficult to fence in Indonesian waters, nor the ship, which would pose a similar logistical problem (I mean, how do you hide a 1,100 foot oil tanker?), but the crews; namely the captain and chief engineer.
On any large cargo vessel, these two individuals are very well trained and highly experienced, making them non-expendable to the cargo companies. A supertanker captain or chief is worth US$50,000, and the shipping companies have been quietly paying these ransoms for quite some time.
But, as piracy in the Malacca Straits and the coast of East Africe has become a cottage industry, the shipping companies are looking into increasingly ingenious (and sometimes violent) methods of piracy protection.
The cap'n's .02
peace
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