The Amsterdam shipping company Spliethoff is about to take over five ships from the bankrupt Hansa Heavy Lift. Spliethoff does not want to confirm or deny this, but ‘hopes to be able to provide clarity at the end of the week’.
Striking is the detailed reporting of the Danish trade journal, which previously mentioned to rely on two centrally located sources. Spliethoff would take over the five ships ‘HHL New York’, ‘HHL Amur’, ‘HHL Elbe’, ‘HHL Mississippi’ and ‘HHL Tyne’, which according to VesselsValue have a combined value of 40 million dollars.
Advanced stage
The sale would also be at such an advanced stage that crew changes are being arranged and the ‘HHL New York’, with a crane capacity of eight hundred metric tons the strongest of the five ships, has been renamed ‘Happy Pioneer’. This name is in line with the other heavy-lift ships of Spliethoff-daughter BigLift, most of whom start with ‘Happy’.
If the news is correct, it is likely that the ‘HHL Amur’, ‘HHL Elbe’, ‘HHL Mississippi’ and ‘HHL Tyne’ will accompany the Spliethoff fleet itself. These four ships have a smaller crane capacity of 300 to 360 tons. The Amsterdam based shipping company already took two ships from Hansa Heavy Lift in September 2016, the ‘HHL Nile’ and ‘HHL Amazon’ which have been renamed ‘MV Heemskerkgracht’ and ‘MV Hemgracht’.
Hansa Heavy Lift refers to the curator of the company for a reaction, but that was not available for comment this morning.
