Sovcomflot Wraps Up Primorsk Tanker Purchase

Prisco Russian shipping major Sovcomflot (SCF) completed the acquisition of nine arctic-going oil tankers from the transporter of bulk liquid cargoes Primorsk International Shipping (Prisco) on September 26. The companys subsidiary SCF Tankers purchased the tankers through an auction procedure as the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, which is handling PRISCO’s bankruptcy case, approved the auction results on July 12. The nine vessels, built in 2008 and 2009 at South Korea’s yards Hyundai Heavy Industries and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding, were acquired by SCF Group for USD 215 million. The ships in question are the 104,535 dwt Aframax crude oil tanker Zaliv Amerika, three LR2 oil product tankers Zaliv Amurskiy, Zaliv Baikal, Zaliv Vostok, which feature over 104,500 dwt, and five MR oil product tankers SCF Anadyr, SCF Angara, SCF Irtysh, SCF Don, and SCF Ussuri, featuring some 50,000 dwt each. All the vessels are of Ice Class 1А or 1С, which enables their year-round use for oil products and crude shipments from the seasonally frozen ports of the Baltic Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the White Sea, SCF said. In late August, SCF secured a loan in the amount of USD 125 million to finance the Prisco purchase. The company signed the financing agreement with Nordea Bank Norge ASA, according to international law firm Watson Farley & Williams (WFW), the adviser on the financing. SCF Groups fleet comprises 151 vessels with a total deadweight of around 13 million tonnes.