Struggling Dongguan Fenghai Shipping is under pressure to sell assets as the ship finance arms of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Citic Bank and several other financiers have lost patience with the shipowner, Chinese financial sources say.

And Chinese-flag chemical and product tanker owners have been approached about taking on management of some, or all, of the company's fleet on behalf of the banks.

Among those approached is major chemical tanker owner Sinochem Shipping.

But some of the companies are reluctant because of concerns about the technical maintenance of the vessels.

Attempts to reach Fenghai officials this week were unsuccessful.

One Sinochem official, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that the banks had approached the domestic arm of the companyto manage Fenghai’s chemical carriers.

Shipping databases list Fenghai with a fleet of 24 ships, including clean product tankers and chemical parcel carriers, ranging from 6,000 dwt to 27,000 dwt.

In addition, the outfit is awaiting delivery from 19,900-dwt newbuildings on order at Fengshun Ship Heavy Industry in Qidong.

However, the fleet is actually larger, as this count omits an unknown number of domestic-only ships with no IMO number.

The company's website consists of pages of dummy text and no fleet list.

All but one of Fenghai's ships fly the Chinese flag, but not all trade domestically. About seven vessels that are operated from Singapore are currently trading with palm oil from South East Asia to the Gulf, and clean products on the return journey.

Bankers and market sources attribute Fenghai's financial distress not only to the challenging chemical tanker market, but also to a series of company specific issues that have made customers reluctant to load their cargoes on its ships.

“Before we could trade these ships, our shipmanagement staff would have to take them all into the shipyard and rectify these deficiencies,” an official at one tanker company who did not wish to be identified said. “It will take some time but we can do it.”

Market sources said this largely applies to the domestic trading vessels but that the Singapore-based trading operation had also suffered the commercial effects.

Fenghai's ships have suffered a series of casualties, most spectacularly a series of explosions in October 2016 on the 5,000-dwt Feng Sheng You 8, whose build date is unknown. The incidents that occurred during cargo operations at Dongfang, in western Hainan, claimed two seafarers' lives.

Meanwhile, the Fengshun newbuilding unit that is listed for imminent delivery to Fenghai has now been named the Michel. This suggests it may be delivered into the hands of another owner or operator because its name does not conform to Fenghai’s numbered ship naming convention.