OMI BUILDS UP PRODUCT TANKER FLEET

OMI BUILDS UP PRODUCT TANKER FLEET    OMI Corp., a Stamford, Conn.-based tanker owner and operator, said it will take delivery of two 37,000-deadweight-ton product tankers from a South Korean shipyard this fall.
   The company has contracted with Sumitomo Corp. to build a 47,000-deadweight-ton product carrier at the Onomichi Dockyard Co. The vessel is scheduled for delivery in early 2003.
   OMI also sold a 1990-built handysize product carrier for $14.8 million. The vessel was bought by the company in March for $14 million.
   '”We are assembling a new high-quality product carrier fleet,” said Craig H. Stevenson Jr., chairman, chief executive officer and president of OMI. “All of these product carriers are either contracted on profitable long term time charters or are likely to be when delivered to us.”
   Since 1999, the company has added four new product tankers, and a fifth will be delivered in the next several weeks. By 2003, OMI will have a product tanker fleet of 10 vessels.
   OMI also operates seven Suezmax tankers, three 66,000 dwt product takers which transport crude oil, and 13 handysize and handymax product carriers, and one ultra large crude carrier.