The chartering arm of trading giant Trafigura has secured partial victory in an $8.5m claim for lost earnings at London’s High Court following the seizure of a VLCC in Singapore in 2020.
The 318,000-dwt tanker Miracle Hope (built 2019) had been on a long-term bareboat charter to Trafigura Maritime Logistics when it was arrested in Singapore by French banking conglomerate Natixis over a $65m cargo claim.
Trafigura had sub-chartered the vessel to Gunvor Group subsidiary Clearlake Shipping USA which had in turn sub-chartered to Brazilian state energy company Petrobras.
Petrobras sold the 1m barrel load to Singapore oil trader Hontop Energy.
Petrobras discharged the cargo in Qingdao, China, against a letter of indemnity signed by Petrobras, despite Natixis still holding on to the bills of lading.
Natixis claimed that the trader failed to reimburse the bank, which had financed the cargo under a letter of credit. It had the Miracle Hope seized when it subsequently arrived in Singapore for refuelling.
Trafigura sued Clearwater for $8.5m for lost earnings because of problems with letters of indemnity that contributed to the ship’s two-month detention.
The bulk of the claim was for the loss of a fixture from West Africa to the US and a subsequent potential follow-on from Brazil to China, court papers showed.
Both fixtures were lost after the ship, owned by Cido Shipping of Hong Kong, was held for two months before Petrobras paid security of $76m into a Singapore court.
Judge Mark Pelling ruled this week that Trafigura had succeeded in the first part of its claim over the $3.8m first fixture.
But he ruled out the $2.2m second because it involved “complex hypothetical calculations” and that a fixture was never confirmed. The level of the damages is to be agreed upon later.
The claim was just one part of a string of legal actions that played out in courts both in Singapore and London linked to the arrest of the tanker.
