GOL Offshore in wind-up threat

Debt-laden Indian offshore vessel provider GOL Offshore might be wound up following a court order to appoint a liquidator for the company.

In a filing on Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday, the vessel operator said that the Court of Bombay had on May 5, 2017 issued the instructions for the admission of petitions for winding-up of the GOL Offshore.

The wind-up petitions have been filed by Export Import Bank of India and Punjab National Bank (International) Limited.

The court has also ordered an appointment of a provisional liquidator of the company, which describes itself as “India’s prominent integrated offshore oilfield services provider offering a broad spectrum of services to upstream oil and gas producers producers.”

Here is the definition of a provisional liquidator as found on Woodgate & Co website:

The Provisional Liquidator’s principal duty is to preserve the status quo, until the Court can determine whether the company should be wound up.  A Provisional Liquidator may trade-on a company’s business.

A provisional liquidation is an interim insolvency administration.  Most provisional liquidations end because the company is wound up.  However, in some circumstances the company’s financial affairs are reorganised, the provisional liquidation ends and the company is restored to solvency.

Vessels sold

To remind, the court last year ordered the sale of six Gol Offshore’s vessels for settlement of the company’s outstanding dues to DVB Group Merchant bank.

The vessels in question were Malaviya Twenty Three, Malaviya Twenty Four, Malaviya Twenty Five, Malaviya Twenty Seven and Malaviya Twenty Eight, and Malaviya Nine.

Offshore Energy Today’s regular readers will be familiar with the Malaviya name. Namely we’ve previously reported on GOL Offshore Malaviya Seven and Malaviya Twenty vessels, and not for a good reason.

Namely, the two vessels have been detained in the UK for not paying crew wages, and keeping them in what the UK maritime unions described as ‘slave-like’ conditions.

Offshore Energy Today Staff