1. Steal oil tanker

2. ??

3. Profit

What is step 2? Normally, I would assume you try to minimize the incentives in buying stolen goods. In this market, nobody is above buying dubiously sourced oil, but what is the likely destination? Do the pirates patiently sit at the oil depot while the ship gets pumped dry, hoping the check clears and nobody shoots them on sight? Once you have an empty $100MM tanker, how do you unload that vessel?

Is it possible the Indian/Japanese/other-petroleum desperate government strike a deal with the pirates?

Step 2. is (or has usually been) hold ship and crew hostage for ransom payment from the ships owner.

Typically insurance companies pay ransoms for crew and cargo .

The economics of Somalian piracy is well documented. How the money is distributed, how they finance the operations and the hostage costs etc

Either used internally or sold off on the black market at a huge discount maybe?

2. Ransom