/// 2008-10-02

AGAIN A MILESTONE FOR FAIRMOUNT

Today Henk van den Berg, CEO of Fairmount Marine B.V., member of the Fairmount Group of Companies which is wholly owned by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs SAS, announced that the purchase by and the delivery to the Fairmount Group of all five Fairmount-class super tugs was successfully completed earlier this week. All five tugs are now owned by the Fairmount Group of companies and all fly now the Dutch flag, with home port Rotterdam . The tugs are managed in all respects by Fairmount Marine.

Henk van den Berg commented; ‘We are of course delighted with this important step in the development of Fairmount. We are very happy to note that the project for the construction and chartering of the five tugs came to a very successful end for the investors, without them, and I cannot emphasise that enough, we would now not be the operators of five such great vessels. I wish to thank our partners and friends of Hanzevast, who did an excellent job, not only in putting the project together, but also in managing the tugs until delivery of the vessels into our management. I am also pleased that Hanzevast has agreed to continue rendering technical assistance to Fairmount in order to achieve a smooth transfer of all ship management functions for the five tugs to us. The Dutch merchant fleet has now five super tugs in its books and I am proud to see ‘’ Rotterdam ’’ on their sterns as their home port. And, last but not least, I express my gratitude to the investors, who have now parted from their tugs, for their support, loyalty and trust.”

The Fairmount fleet of five 200 tonnes bollard pull super tugs has a full order book and is the prime choice for Fairmount’s clients in the oil- and gas, off shore industry where long or short distance towage of the heaviest and most demanding floating objects is concerned.