MUMBAI, December 24: The Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) has shelved its $100-million external commercial borrowing (ECB) issue which was planned to part-finance the acquisition of Aframax oil tankers and a product tanker.

The ECB option has to be dropped as the South Korean Shipyard, Halla Engineering & Heavy Industries, with which SCI had signed an agreement for the construction of the tankers, went bankrupt early this month. "The agreement with the Korean shipyard was to be re-affirmed this month, but meanwhile it went bankrupt," said chairman and managing director of SCI, PK Srivastava.

SCI entered into an agreement with Halla Engineering & Heavy Industries last week of October this year for acquiring two 110,000 DWT (dead weight tonnage) Aframax crude oil tankers. The tankers, costing $84 million each, were expected to be delivered during the second half of 1998. The company, which plans to acquire 44 vessels during the Ninth Plan, will have to go through the tendering exercise again. A fresh ECB application will also have to be submitted to the ministry of surface transport (MoST) as approval for every tranche of ECB is project-linked.

According to sources, SCI called for fresh international tenders for the Aframax tankers early this week. However, this time tenders are invited for four Aframax tankers of 1.1 lakh DWT each. The last date for submitting technical offers is February 16, 1998.