Batista’s Precious OSX-3 FPSO Departs Singapore for Brazilian Waters

Image: OSX

July 16 (Bloomberg) — Eike Batista’s OSX-3 offshore oil- processing vessel, collateral for his shipping unit’s bonds, departed from Singapore and is heading to Rio de Janeiro.

The ship anchored in the Singapore Strait until yesterday is now west of the Asian nation where it was built, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg from IHS Fairplay, a Redhill, England-based maritime research company.

The vessel built by Tokyo-based Modec Inc. is helping OSX Brasil SA’s $500 million of 2015 notes weather a selloff of debt and shares from Batista’s crumbling resources empire as it guarantees creditors’ payback. The ship remains one of Batista’s most valuable assets after failure to deliver on output targets and projects sparked a rout of his energy, materials and cargo companies that wiped out $30 billion of his wealth.

The bonds backed by the ship are down 19.5 cents this year to 84.02 cents on the dollar and have lost investors about 2 percent, including reinvested interest, since their March 2012 issuance. That compares with a loss of more than 70 cents for distressed notes from Batista’s OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA in the same span, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The OSX-3 floating production, storage and offloading platform, or FPSO, built by Modec was valued at $800 million, according to a March 2012 prospectus for the bonds that offer the ship as collateral.

Oil explorer OGX ordered the platform for its Tubarao Martelo field, where Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd agreed to buy a 40 percent stake in May for $850 million.

Modec said last month that the vessel would leave Singapore “around the end of June” to arrive in Rio by year-end.

– Carlos Caminada, Copyright 2013 Bloomberg.

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