Seachem clarifies

We refer to your article of April 3 titled 'CPO smuggling rife again: Hasan'.

As operators of the vessel Courageventure, a ship with a similar name to the vessel mentioned in your above article, we wish to make clear on behalf of our company, the owners of the vessel and one of the charterers on the vessel Messrs Wilmar Trading PTE Ltd the following:

1. The vessel Courageventure is calling in Dumai on or about April 15 to load 4,500MT of palm fatty acid distillate and 1,450MT crude palm kernel oil for Europe.

2. At no time was it ever our, or charterer's Wilmar's, intention to load from an Indonesian port any product or grade that has been banned from export by Indonesian authorities.

3. Seachem has been operating a monthly service of vegetable oils from Indonesia and Malaysia to Europe for the last eight years and as such we are one of the most regular and experienced veg oil carriers in the market.

Seachem and our charterers are embarrassed to be implicated in such allegations and we can assure all parties we would never be involved in any illegal activity and/or contradict any Indonesian (or any other country's) rules and regulations.

MICHAEL A. BEVISS

General Manager

Seachem Singapore (FE) PTE Ltd