Singapore’s Hong Lam Marine has acquired a fourth tanker from the liquidators of Xihe Holdings.
The 13,500-dwt chemical/product tanker Ocean Marlin (built 2018) was handed over to the Caroline Yang-led company at the end of March and has been renamed Castor.
The sale leaves Xihe’s liquidators to find buyers for the 20 remaining unsold tankers, including three medium-range product tankers and 17 small product tankers of between 1,000-dwt and 16,600-dwt.
The failed company boasted a fleet of around 150 tankers at the time of its collapse in early 2020.
Hong Lam is reported by brokers to have paid $10m for the Ocean Marlin, a ship that online platform VesselsValue puts a $15.2m snapshot value on.
Hong Lam, which VesselsValue indicates now has a fleet of 41 product tankers of between 1,000-dwt and 29,100-dwt, has long been a major player in the Singapore bunker tanker market, but until it began taking advantage of the Xihe fleet sell-off, it only had a small footprint in the regional tanker sector.
The company has now acquired four Xihe-linked product tankers following the collapse of that company along with affiliated tanker operator Ocean Tankers, which was a dominant player in the South East Asian tanker trades.
Three of the tankers Hong Lam has added to its fleet were either bought at auction or direct from the liquidators, while a fourth was acquired as a newbuilding resale from Chinese shipbuilder Fujian Southeast after Xihe was unable to take delivery.
