SEABULK ARCTIC

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Delta Charters Jones Act Tanker

Monroe Energy, the Delta subsidiary that runs the airline's 165,000 barrel per day (bpd) Trainer refinery, has time-chartered the 330,000-barrel MR Seabulk Arctic, a Jones Act vessel built in 1998, for two years beginning in August, according to sources familiar with the deal. A Delta spokesman confirmed the charter but provided no further details. It has an option to switch to a newly build ship in 2016 for an additional three years. Seabulk Tankers, an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Seacor Holdings that owns the Seabulk Arctic, has three tankers on order from General Dynamics's NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, the first of which will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2016. The ship was previously chartered to leading U.S. refiner Valero Energy, which sources say has moved to reduce its exposure to the Jones Act shipping market, a once-quiet niche that has surged in recent years on growing demand to ship Texas shale crude to East Coast refiners.