Detained Russian ship to be auctioned off

The first attempt to sell Ivan Lopatin, belonging to Murmansk Shipping Company (MSCO), will be made on July 4-5, with the initial price set at 2.4 million euros, according to information on the evarzytynes.lt website.

Based on information from marinetraffic.com, the ship has been standing in Klaipeda since late October 2017 after arriving from Iceland's port of Grundartangi.

The ve.lt website reported earlier that the condition of the Russian vessel is bad and it's posing threat to the LNG storage vessel Independence. The ship was detained in response to the request of a Saint Petersburg company as its owner had debts resulting from a damaged shipment.

Sources told the website Ivan Lopatin's market value is at least 10 million euros.

MSCO has around 20 ships, and despite its poor conditions, Ivan Lopatin, which use to sail under the Russian flag, is one of the company's newest vessels, built in 2010.