UK shipbroker CW Kellock has been appointed to handle a US court sale of a Turkish bulker arrested by Bank of America last year.
The District Court in New Orleans ordered the auction of the 35,000-dwt handysize Marine Princess (built 2012) following missed mortgage payments.
The date is yet to be announced but will not be later than 3 February.
The sale includes the remaining fuel on board the bulker, which is moored at the port.
VesselsValue assesses the Sohtorik Management & Agency-managed handysize as worth $17.5m.
Mortgages on both Sohtorik vessels
Bank of America is believed to also hold the mortgage on the company's other vessel, the sistership Marine Prince, currently at anchor in Brazil.
One industry source told TradeWinds it is in the interests of all parties to maximise the return from the auction to reduce the pressure on the other bulker.
The court order states that Bank of America will be permitted to bid on credit up to the sum of the unpaid mortgage balance of at least $27.35m, plus unpaid interest, costs and lawyers' fees.
In September, TradeWinds reported that a Swiss agriculture company had asserted a claim against the Marine Princess.
AMS Ameropa filed an intervenor complaint in Bank of America's litigation.
The company is seeking the $3.3m that it said it lost on a sub-charter it was unable to fulfil after the ship was arrested.
Nearly two dozen missed payments
AMS said the sub-charter was arranged in March 2021, the same month Bank of America sued in the US federal court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in a bid to secure more than $7m after the ship's registered owner, Sunset Shipping, missed nearly two dozen loan payments.
On 9 September, Bank of America filed a motion to have the ship auctioned.
The bank said that no security had been posted to free the vessel and that it had spent at least $170,000 in custodial costs.
AMS is seeking $2.9m in lost profit, as it stood to make $7,940.62 per day net from the Marine Princess sub-charter after fixing it for $17,806.25 per day.
The agriculture firm also wants $274,765 for the value of the bunkers on board, $84,421 for overpaid hire fees paid to Sunset Shipping, $5,307 for pilotage fees and a declaration that Sunset Shipping is liable for any claim brought by the unnamed sub-charterer.
A long tradition of shipping
Sohtorik has been contacted for comment.
The Sohtorik family has been involved in shipping for over six generations.
Their maritime roots go back to the 1800s when Osman Sohtorik started his business in Rize in the Black Sea region of Turkey.
His son, Cafer Sohtorik and then his grandson, H Avni Sohtorik, developed the company by starting deepsea trading and building up the fleet.
Chairman Emir Sohtorik is the latest member of the family to run the company.
