Singapore’s High Court has scheduled a second auction attempt for a pipe-laying crane and accommodation barge belonging to Swiber Holdings.
As is the practice in Singapore, the 11,600-gt, non-propelled Swiber Concorde (built 2008) will be sold through a sealed bid process.
Bids for the vessel are due in at the Sheriff of Singapore’s office on the afternoon of 18 September.
A recent court-appointed survey of the ship describes it as being in sound and serviceable condition, albeit in need of an external repaint.
The Swiber Concorde was arrested in March by United Overseas Bank (UOB) as part of an attempt to recover $20.4m on a foreclosed mortgage it holds on the vessel.
An auction held in August was described as being poorly attended and failed to elicit any bids deemed acceptable.
This lack of buyer interest came as no surprise to offshore industry observers as the vessel is a specialised craft with limited job-scope flexibility that operates in the offshore construction field, where work is currently extremely difficult to find.
Auction attempts for previous offshore assets belonging to Swiber and other failed offshore companies have proven difficult, and in many cases required several auction attempts before the ships were finally sold.
