Commodities trader Vitol is suing a shipowner for more than $3m because of allegedly leaky valves on a product tanker that led to an oil cargo being contaminated.
Some of the mixed cargo of gasoil, marine, motor and jet fuel loaded onto the 71,818-dwt Analipsi Lady (built 2005) was found to be contaminated when it arrived in Mauritius in December 2019, according to the claim at London’s High Court.
Vitol chartered the ship from Liberia-registered Pisa Shipholding Corp to deliver the oil from the Middle East ports of Sitra in Bahrain and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates to Port Louis, Mauritius.
But Vitol claimed the valves that were vital to segregating the cargoes had not been tested for at least three years. “To the knowledge of the crew, the vessel had at least 11 leaking or broken valves at the time loading operations commenced at Sitra, Bahrain,” said the legal claim.
It said the leaking vessels undermined the segregation system on the ship, leading to a mixing of some of the cargoes that were being delivered for the State Trading Corp (STC) of Mauritius, the government’s trading arm.
The contamination led to delays in the discharge of the oil amid critically low stocks in the country, according to the legal claim.
At the request of STC, Vitol arranged for two more tankers to make urgent oil shipments to Mauritius.
A fourth tanker delivering another cargo as part of the contract had to wait to discharge because of the delays caused by the contaminated cargo and a shortage of berths, and Vitol had to pay demurrage to the owner.
The total claim is made up of losses from the contaminated cargo, additional shipping, demurrage and other costs. No defence has yet been filed in the case, according to London court filings.
Pisa Shipholding Corp does not currently own any ships, according to Equasis. It has an address care of a Singaporean technical manager but could not immediately be reached for comment.
It sold the Analipsi Lady in 2021, according to Equasis. The tanker was renamed Bueno and after a second change of ownership, it was blacklisted by the US Treasury in 2022 as one of 11 tankers allegedly involved in the Iranian oil trade.
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