Three Pacific Richfield anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessels attracted a fair amount of interest when they went under the hammer last week — but failed to sell.
According to officials at the Sheriff of Singapore’s office, the 8,000-bhp Pacific Bronze and 6,000-bhp Pacific 8 (both built 2003) and Pacific 28 (built 2004) each received around five offers but none of the bids met the minimum reserve price.
The High Court of Singapore bases the reserve price on evaluations by consultants shortly before the auction. It does not disclose the figure.
While the decision to accept any offer below the reserve price remains the prerogative of the judge handling the case, input from the arresting parties is taken into account.
In the case of the Pacific Richfield vessels, mortgagee United Overseas Bank (UOB) is trying to recoup $22.4m alone on the Pacific Bronze. At the time it came up for auction, the ship was deemed by VesselsValue to be worth only its scrap value of $570,000.
If neither the court nor UOB is willing to accept what was offered, another attempt to sell the ships will be made in the near future.
Over the past year, very few AHTSs and other types of offshore ships have sold at the first auction. Most have required two to three attempts.
Buyers of offshore vessels today are generally opportunistic. But time is not of the essence, so they are willing to play the waiting game to secure ships for the lowest possible price.
Hard hit by the collapse of the offshore markets, privately owned Pacific Richfield has sold off its prime assets and is listed as owning a couple of 10-year-old AHTS vessels and a dozen or so older ones dating from the 1970s and 1980s. The company could not be reached for comment on its plans.
The trio that went up for auction last week has been in cold lay-up since 2015 at Pacific Richfield’s shipyard in the Tuas region of Singapore.
