The 274,000-tonne Southernpec 5, a 1989-built single-hull oil tanker, arrived in Singapore waters on January 7 and is currently anchored at the Eastern Petroleum Anchorage.
The VLCC is scheduled to sail to the Malaysian port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) on January 15, according to David Yao, vice general manager of Southernpec (Singapore) Pte Ltd.
”The VLCC will store mainly 380 centistokes (cSt) bunker fuel and some crude oil,” Yao told Bunkerworld.
Southernpec 5 will mainly sell bigger fuel oil parcels to China and Hong Kong and smaller bunker lots to Malaysia and Singapore, Yao added.
”The VLCC is expected to load its first fuel oil cargo in February. We target about one full turn for our ship each month. ”Our latest acquisition signals our company’s goal of going global,” he added. Southernpec is also mulling the lease of part of its new VLCC capacity to one partner.
”We already have five to six players who are interested in leasing the floating storage capacity, but we will likely choose only one,” Yao said.

Southernpec 5 will operate alongside the company’s first 284,000-tonne floating oil tanker Nanfang Sanhao, which received its first bunker cargo in August last year.
Sister firm Sinopec Hong Kong (S) Pte Ltd has leased a majority of the storage capacity on Nanfang Sanhao.
Guangzhou-based Southernpec and Sinopec Hong Kong are affiliates of China’s state-owned Sinopec Group, Asia’s largest oil refiner.