Singapore’s First Ship Lease Trust has lined up a second sale for a tanker impounded by Indian customs officials for more than six months.

The company said a deal has been struck to offload the 20,000-dwt chemical carrier FSL London (built 2006) to a third party.

A 15% deposit has been placed in escrow, the company added, without revealing further details.

The ship has been trading in the spot market since being released in India earlier in June.

VesselsValue assesses the tanker as being worth close to $12m.

In September, brokers reported a sale to Indonesia’s Samudera at $10.2m, but this fell through when the carrier was arrested in Kandla in November.

Details are scarce, but FSL has said customs officials had investigated the specification of part of the cargo.

FSL said it “continues to pursue damage claims against the charterer of the vessel for the delays caused by the carriage of the particular cargo loaded by the charterer and destined for India, the attendant investigations of the cargo, and the vessel being held by the customs authorities in India”.

Earlier this week, the shipowner completed the sale of its last crude tanker as it revealed a small profit from the deal.

The 115,900-dwt aframax FSL Hong Kong (built 2007) has gone for $19.5m.

The company delivered the ship to a Chinese owner named as Hanwang (Hongkong) Trade Co, which has no other vessels listed in shipping databases.

FSL is now left with nine tankers: an MR and seven smaller vessels.

Four ships were offloaded last year and one 9,500-dwt tanker was acquired.