A United Arab Emirates-registered company is suing Penfield Marine's UK arm over a crew change it alleges complicated a cargo discharge.
Wellbred Trading sued Penfield Marine UK in the US federal court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to garnish at least $532,000 for extra costs incurred when Penfield redirected the 105,525-dwt Jag Leela (built 2011) to India in the spring.
The tanker was carrying 80,000 tonnes of fuel oil from Fujairah to Singapore.
Wellbred, which argued against the crew change, intends to seek arbitration in London.
"The [Jag Leela's] deviation from the intended voyage in violation of the charterparty resulted in other additional costs to Wellbred, which are significant, but have not yet been quantified," lawyers said in the 11 October complaint.
Once the India-flagged Jag Leela completed its crew change on 7 May, cargo owner Chevron Signapore rejected the vessel, citing the city-state's Covid-19 port restrictions, Wellbred said.
The UAE company further alleged that a second ship had to be secured to take the oil in a ship-to-ship transfer to bring it into port.
Penfield Marine, a Connecticut-based commercial operator of tankers, did not respond to a request for comment.
Travel restrictions put in place to stem the Covid-19 pandemic's spread created a global crew change crisis, in which as many as 400,000 seafarers were trapped aboard their ships and working beyond their contract terms and, in some cases, maritime safety standards.
The number has since been halved, but the spread of the delta variant has pushed some jurisdictions to put travel restrictions back in place, again creating issues.
Some in shipping have blamed charterers for exacerbating the issue by not allowing ships to deviate from their voyages to get overdue crew off their vessels.
The lack of changes has created mental health issues for seafarers and has many worried about a potential labour shortage, as crew members may be reticent to go back out to sea.
At the time of the Jag Leela's crew change, Singapore had two weeks prior put in place rules blocking crew changes for non-resident seafarers who had recently been to India.
The ship's registered owner and manager is Great Eastern Shipping, according to Equasis. Penfield is listed as its commercial operator.
