OREANDA-NEWS. March 13, 2017. Venezuelan state-owned PdV was ordered to offload 545,000 bl of waterborne crude into onshore storage in the Dutch island of St Eustatius until a UK court rules on a $30mn claim for unpaid charter fees, but it is not clear if court-ordered conditions for the transfer will be met.

The order was issued today by a court based on another Dutch Caribbean island, St Maarten, in response to a claim filed by 11 shipowners against PdV for the overdue fees.

The Liberian-flagged tanker carrying the Venezuelan crude, 110,000t Columbus owned by Russia's SCF, is anchored off St. Eustatius, where PdV leases oil storage from US firm NuStar Energy.

The court ordered the Monrovia-based tanker manager Sigma Navigation to cooperate with PdV and NuStar in offloading the crude cargo "only if PdV and NuStar first provide written acceptance and guarantees of seven conditions imposed by the court," Michiel Gorsira, a senior attorney at the law firm VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne that represents the shipowners, told Argus today.

The Dutch Caribbean court's ruling did not address the merits of the claim seeking to force the sale of the crude in order to pay the past-due tanker charter fees.

Instead, the local court deferred to a UK High Court which is hearing a separate but related claim filed against PdV by Liberia-based Sigma Navigation and 10 other shipowners based on Monrovia.

"If there had not been a UK proceeding underway, the local court would have ruled on the claim instead of deferring to the UK court," Gorsira said.

There is precedent in Dutch-Caribbean jurisprudence for the local court's decision today to defer to the UK High Court case, he added.

The crude is unlikely to be offloaded immediately, Gorsira cautioned. Sigma Navigation is not required by the court to help PdV and NuStar in any way if the latter two companies first do not provide written guarantees they will respect all of the court's conditions, Gorsira said.

PdV and NuStar first must guarantee in writing that both companies will respect the liens placed on the cargo by Sigma Navigation and the other shipowners, Gorsira said.

The crude now aboard the tanker anchored off NuStar's terminal also must be stored in separate tanks and no crude from any other shipments can be intermingled in the tanks or transferred to another destination until the $30mn claim is decided by the UK High Court or in arbitration.