What was supposed to have been a routine redelivery of an aframax at the conclusion of long-term bareboat charter is expected to become an acrimonious legal battle between US-listed StealthGas and Norway’s Bergshav.
Details of the dispute emerged this week after Stealth Berana AS, a Bergshav-linked vehicle that chartered the 115,800-dwt Stealth Berana (built 2010) for a five-year period beginning in 2015, arrested the ship in Singapore shortly after handing it back to its Harry Vafias-backed owner earlier this month.
Records in the High Court of Singapore indicate that charterer lodged a $1.48m charter claim against the ship.
A StealthGas official told TradeWinds the company expects a "messy" arbitration battle to result from disputes over the charter of the recently redelivered aframax.
"The ship has been on long bareboat to Bergshav and the arrest happened because the owners owe them payment of bunkers," said the official, who was not willing to be mentioned by name. "But there are some technical defects on the ship that the charterers should have repaired prior to redelivery, and the charterers refused."
"I think a big expensive, messy arbitration will take place against the charterers."
The two sides' claims have not been finalised yet but the StealthGas source pegged them at around $300,000 for the bunkers on board against some $1.4m for the alleged technical issues.
Bergshav Management chief financial officer Andreas Hannevik, speaking for company chairman Atle Bergshaven, responded sharply to the StealthGas position.
"We have redelivered the vessel to StealthGas in a much better condition than we received it in five years ago," said Hannevik.
"Stealth is well known in the industry for making redeliveries difficult. In our opinion, there is no legal basis for their claim, while ours is indisputable."
Some previous reports have connected the vessel to a Shell charter but the StealthGas official said the charterer was Bergshav, with a sub-charter at one point to Phillips 66.
This is not the first time that StealthGas has expressed its displeasure at the condition the Stealth Bernama at the conclusion of a bareboat charter.
The vessel was acquired from Geden Lines as a newbuilding resale in 2010, and immediately chartered back to the Turkish owner for five years. It was named Spike during this charter
A legal row erupted at the conclusion of the charter. StealthGas claimed that Geden had redelivered the ship in very poor condition, and was in breech of the charter agreement.
Bergshav stepped in to charter the ship afterwards, assigning the technical management to its in-house shipmanagement arm.
Vafias family-linked Stealth Maritime took over the technical management after it was redelivered by Bergshav earlier this month.
