Thursday, December 28, 2023

Imperial Imports

 Despite several recent loads from its refineries in Ontario (see recent posts on Algocanada and Kivalliq W.) Imperial Oil is also bringing in product from Texas. Yesterday (December 26) saw the arrival of the Minerva Zen from Houston.


 The ship carries the "Minerva" banner on the ship's hull - which appears to have been applied rather hastily over older paint. Minerva Marine Inc, an operator based in Athens, runs more than fifty tankers of all sizes, and twenty dry cargo ships.

The rest of the ship still carries the unmistakable colour scheme of its orginal owners. It was built by Guangzhou International in 2009 as Torm Lana, a 29,442 gt, 52,941 dwt MidRange product tanker. The ship's black hull and burnt orange superstructure are the carry over from Torm A/S the Danish owners that operated the ship. 

Torm's subsidiary Torm Singapore Pte Ltd sold the ship in 2012 and it was renamed and placed under Minerva management. At the time Torm was facing bankruptcy due to collapsing cargo rates and over valued ships and huge debt load. The company was saved however by a complex refininacing and is still in operation. [See more on Torm's survival in my June 17, 2016 post.]

.

No comments:

Post a Comment