Swiber Scraps Barge to Repay DBS Debt

Swiber Holdings’ indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, Swiber Atlantis Pte. Ltd. (SAPL), has entered into a memorandum of agreement to sell the derrick/lay combination barge ‘Sea Horizon’ to WAG SPV I.

The vessel will be sold for USD 10.25 million.

Sea Horizon, with a length of 110 meters and a beam of 30 meters, has been mortgaged in favor of DBS Bank (DBS) as security for the company’s obligations under certain banking facilities extended by DBS to the company.

The vessel was built in 1977 and is the oldest one in the Swiber’s fleet of eleven barges.

Pursuant to surveys and investigations conducted on the Sea Horizon, the vessel is out of class, meaning that certain aspects do not currently conform to the classification standards imposed by the American Bureau of Shipping.

Significant rectification works amounting to an estimated minimum of USD 0.6 million would be required to be carried out to bring the vessel up to class, Swiber explained.

Sea Horizon is currently chartered to Meadsea Services B.V. and sub-chartered to Swiber Offshore Construction, but has been put in “off-hire” status as of June 20, 2016 at a shipyard in Singapore.

Due to the “off-hire” status of the vessel, it is currently docked in a cold stack lay-up with minimal crew and no operational systems running.

As Swiber informed, the vessel will be sold on an “as-is-where-is” basis.

To remind, Swiber has been put under the judicial management in October. The Singapore High Court appointed KPMG as the judicial manager for the company.