Hong Kong: Rapidly expanding Hong Kong-listed Brightoil Petroleum plans to buy five very large crude carriers (VLCC) for $537.5 million, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The Chinese oil trader said on Monday it had signed a letter of intent on July 23 with third parties to purchase the five new vessels.
The first four will be constructed and delivered to the company by the second half of 2012, with the remaining one to be delivered by first-quarter 2013, the statement said.
The purchase will be funded by bank financing and internal resources, it said.
The contract for the transaction will be finalised no later than August 31, it added.
Brightoil's filing was in response to a query by the Hong Kong bourse on unusual price and trading volume in its shares, which have fallen by 9.5 percent in the past two trading sessions.
The company plans to set up a trading house, Brightoil International Petroleum, with teams to trade fuel oil, middle distillates and crude in Singapore, Europe and the U.S., court documents show.
Brightoil's detailed plans were submitted to the Singapore High court by Quek Chin Thean, former global head of BP's fuel oil desk, as part of his defence to a breach-of-contract suit by the oil major.
The bulk of the former traders from BP's global fuel oil team and Asia marine fuels desk which Brightoil had hired for the new Singapore-based trading firm started work this week. [18/08/10]
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