It was intended that the new owners would employ the ship on a storage project in South East Asia. Market rumours circulating in recent days indicates that the ship will be scrapped, and also that there might be uncertainty whether the new owner will comply with IMO guidelines on ship recycling.

After completing a storage contract in Qatar different options for the ship such as new storage opportunities and scrapping were considered. Upgrade and class renewals to bring her into commercial trading was never a viable commercial option.

Discussions were held with several parties for the potential use of the ship as a storage unit ("FSO"). And such FSO operation would, however, require new classification of the ship, which in turn would imply high costs and therefore require a long term contract.

None of the parties we discussed this option with were willing to accept a long term contract sufficient for us to defend the cost. We were then approached by the new owners, an industrial storage player based in Malaysia and operating other ships on storage contracts in Asia. Their intention was to employ the ship for possible storage projects, says Jørn T. Røkaas, SFO in Fred. Olsen Production.