Hong Lam Marine has bought yet another tanker from the liquidators of failed Singaporean tanker owner Xihe Holdings fleet.
The Singapore-based product and bunker tanker operator has paid a reported $10m for the 12,000-dwt epoxy-coated product tanker Ocean Moray (built 2018), which has joined its expanding fleet as the Cassiopeia.
The vessel is the third Xihe-linked product tanker that Hong Lam, which owns and operates one of Singapore’s largest fleets of bunker tankers, has acquired to take advantage of the void left in the Southeast Asian regional product tanker trades following Xihe affiliate Ocean Tankers’ collapse.
Ocean Tankers was one of the largest regional tanker players in Southeast Asia with a fleet of 36 product tankers of between 7,900-dwt and 17,000-dwt at the time of its demise.
These were complemented by a further 14 handysize tankers that also operated throughout the region.
“The loss of Ocean Tankers created a big void in the market,” explained a Singapore-based tanker broker specialising in the regional trades.
“This was partially offset by the whole region being in lockdown during the early part of the pandemic, but demand is coming back while the Ocean Tankers fleet has been scattered far and wide,” he added.
Third purchase
Hong Lam’s first Xihe-linked purchase took place in 2021 when it acquired a 13,800-dwt chemical tanker newbuilding that was under construction for Xihe at Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding. It was delivered to the company as the Stargazer.
That purchase was followed up in December 2021 when the company bought at auction the 12,000-dwt product tanker Ocean Jack (built 2018), an identical sistership of the Ocean Moray.
It was promptly put in service under the name Canopus.
Tanker industry observers in Singapore widely predicted that Hong Lam would also acquire one or more of the other three 12,000-dwt product tankers that were auctioned at the same time as the Ocean Jack.
Two of these vessels, the Ocean Manta (built 2017) and Ocean Porpoise (built 2018) have been handed over to new owners whose identities have yet to emerge in the market.
The result of the auction of the fourth sister, the Ocean Goby (built 2017) has yet to be revealed and on Thursday the ship remained on the High Court of Singapore’s list of arrested ships.
According to VesselsValue data, excluding the Ocean Goby, about a dozen of Xihe’s small product tankers that were previously used in regional trades remain unsold.
