Liquidators of the Xihe Holdings fleet have found a buyer for yet another of its small product tankers.
Brokers report that the failed Singaporean tanker owner's 9,500-dwt product tanker Ocean Pitta (built 2013) has been sold for $4m to a South American buyer.
Like many of the buyers who have tapped the Xihe fleet for their tonnage needs, whomever bought the Ocean Pitta got themselves a bargain.
The Nanjing Tianshun-built vessel is estimated by VesselsValue to be worth $7.2m.
Although some reports said the vessel was sold at auction, TradeWinds was told that the liquidators sold the ship via a broker-led tender process.
The product tanker sat out the collapse of Xihe and affiliated tanker operator Ocean Tankers at an anchorage in the South China Sea, and only returned to Singapore in early October to facilitate its sale. It was never arrested.
Big-ticket assets
The sale of the Ocean Pitta leaves Xihe's liquidators looking for buyers for the 51 vessels left in a fleet that once numbered 117 vessels.
The majority of Xihe's big-ticket assets have been sold off, leaving mostly small and handysize tankers.
A handful of these remaining ships have been arrested by creditors and are expected to be put on the judicial auction block in the near future.
The largest under arrest is the 318,600-dwt crude carrier Wu Yi San (built 2012), which was seized at the end of September by Credit Agricole Asia Shipfinance, one of Xihe's larger creditors.
A quartet of 12,000-dwt product tankers was arrested around the same time by Bank of America.
