Hvide Completes Lightship Transaction

Hvide Marine Incorporated (HMI) received Hart-Scott-Rodino clearance and has completed the purchase of the remaining 24.25% equity interest in Lightship Tankers LLC previously held by Newport News Shipbuilding. The transaction, originally announced on December 22, is valued at $11 million and gives HMI 100% ownership of these five 1998- and 1999-built double-hull, state-of-the-art product tankers. The five Lightship tankers -- HMI Ambrose Channel, HMI Brenton Reef, HMI Cape Lookout Shoals, HMI Diamond Shoals, and HMI Nantucket Shoals -- are engaged in the domestic Jones Act trade, which limits the shipment of cargo between U.S. ports to U.S.-built, U.S.-crewed, U.S.-flagged and U.S.-owned vessels. They are the newest self-propelled vessels in the market and transport petroleum products, chemicals and crude oil along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts, and Alaska. Under the terms of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90), all single-hull vessels must be phased out of the domestic Jones Act trade by 2015. Because of their double-hull construction, the Lightship tankers have no retirement date under OPA 90, and their value is expected to increase over time as the mandated phaseout of single-hull vessels continues.