In recent days, the state-owned shipping company Crnogorska plovidba has offered for sale both of its ships "Kotor" and "Dvadeset prvi maj" through a number of brokers operating almost all over the world.
This was confirmed to "Vijesti" yesterday by the executive director. Vladimir Tadic.
He pointed out that the company has been put in a difficult position, that it urgently needs to sell at least one of its two ships - primarily the "Kotor", which is due to sail into the port of Tyne in the UK today, after a two-week journey across the Atlantic, with a cargo of pellets.
"We have been pressured from all sides - creditors are demanding money that we owe them on various grounds (oil, supplies, spare parts), American companies to which we owed significant money for port and tugboat services during the unplanned stop of the "Kotor" in the port of Savana are demanding that this be paid to them immediately and are refusing the pledge on the ship, and in the meantime, Prva Banka has also terminated the revolving credit agreement and demanded that we pay it 320.000 euros immediately, so now there is a chance that they will block our account again. Its current charterer, the company "Trithorn Bulk", which has announced that it is terminating the time charter agreement for the "Kotor". Therefore, the only way to at least temporarily get out of these problems is to urgently sell the "Kotor", said Tadić.
Unofficially, the figure mentioned is 1,5 million euros, which would be enough for the company to settle all its obligations and continue operating at this time.
Contract with Barska plovidba terminated
He confirmed that in the meantime, Barska plovidba had also requested and received a consensual termination of the contract on business and technical cooperation with Crnogorska, which was signed at the insistence of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs at the end of May. According to that contract, which the expert maritime community in Montenegro immediately said was illegal in many ways, unprecedented in the global maritime industry and would certainly be detrimental to Crnogorska, and perhaps to both shipping companies, Barska was supposed to take over the management of Crnogorska's ships and provide the Kotor-based company with a loan of one million euros in order for it to overcome the liquidity problems that the Ministry of Maritime Affairs had previously caused it with its untimely reactions and actions. However, Barska has so far transferred only 360.000 euros of the contracted one million euros to Montenegrina, and poor management and the “vacuum” that was created in the technical and procedural management of Montenegrina’s ships led to the unplanned detention of the “Kotor” in the port of Savannah in the USA by the US Coast Guard, which, during an inspection of the ship, discovered a total of nine procedural and minor technical deficiencies, all of which have since been eliminated. However, the detention of the “Kotor” in the USA caused Montenegrina enormous additional unplanned costs, and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs suddenly gave up on, as they had previously stated, the “attempt to save” the company through the implementation of the cooperation agreement, and proposed, and the Government accepted, the urgent sale of these two ships.
Minister Filip Radulović (PES) announced that the state allegedly “no longer has any legal possibility to help Crnogorska plovidba” and requested that both of its ships be sold urgently so that the state can recover at least part of the total 37 million euros that the government has so far provided as a guarantee for the repayment of the loan installment to the Chinese Exim Bank, taken out for the construction of these ships. Radulović has repeatedly publicly promoted the story that “Kotor” and “Dvadeset prvi maj” are allegedly in “catastrophic” or “poor technical condition”, but he has since been denied this by the findings of PSC inspections carried out in the USA and South Korea, which have determined that both ships are in good condition and seaworthy.
The ad denies Radulović and Mihailović
That Radulović and the executive director of Barska plovidba Boris Mihailovic, who has also often served up stories in the media over the past month and a half about the allegedly catastrophically poor condition of Montenegro's ships, misleading the public, in addition to the findings of the American and South Korean maritime authorities, is also shown by the text of the ad for the sale of ships placed by the brokerage house SSY, which operates worldwide, through its branch in Athens.
It states in two places that the “Kotor” has just passed and passed a periodic inspection by inspectors from the classification society “Bureau Veritas”, which periodically inspects the ship between its two regular five-yearly dockings and inspections for class renewal. In the case of the “Kotor”, this will happen again in April 2027.
SSY is informing interested parties in the used boat market that Crnogorska is offering both of its vessels for sale, noting that “sellers are invited to submit their best offers for “Kotor” by Sunday, August 3rd, at 18pm”, UK local time. Interested buyers are being offered the opportunity to tour and view “Kotor” in the Port of Tyne where she will be until August 4th, and to visit and view “Twenty-first May” in the port of Ko Sichang in Thailand where the ship will be from August 2nd to 7th.
Tadić explains the urgency in the "Kotora" case by the fact that Montenegro is "pressed" from all sides and urgently needs money to avoid the capture and seizure of its ships by the numerous creditors who are knocking on its door.
"We already have some offers from interested buyers, including those who would like to buy both of our ships at once. I don't know what will happen next in that regard, because the company's Board of Directors will ultimately decide on that," said Tadić.
The Ministry and the Government are ignoring the calls
Tadić said that, if the "Kotor" is already sold and money is available to settle the most urgent debts, perhaps the sale of the "Tvadeset prvog maja" should be postponed and Crnogorska should be given a chance to try to avoid the shutdown that will surely follow if it loses both ships.
"However, I am not sure if this will be feasible because absolutely no one from either the Ministry of Maritime Affairs or the Government of Montenegro is responding to all our addresses in recent days and the information we send them about the problems we are dealing with," said Tadić.
The ships “Kotor” and “Dvadeset prvi maj” are twins – bulk carriers, built in 2012 in China. They are 180 meters long, 28,4 meters wide and have a draft of 10,8 meters. The ships are powered by MAN B&W engines with a capacity of 8.810 horsepower each, and “Kotor” and “Dvadeset prvi maj” each have four deck cranes with a capacity of 30 tons, and are equipped to load cargo in the form of logs on deck. The current price of such used handy size bulk carriers of the same year on the world market ranges from 8,5 to 10 million dollars.
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