Comments on Post-OPA Voyage Plans for ALLEGIANCE Maritrans Inc. (NYSE:TUG), a leading U.S. flag marine petroleum transportation company, today announced the completion of an agreement with its existing lenders, which amends its $40 million revolving credit facility. The amended facility allows for $60 million of borrowing capacity, with the ability to increase the amount to $120 million through additional bank commitments in the future. The agreement also extends the term of the commitments under the facility to October 2010, from January 2007. The Company has borrowed funds from time to time under the original $40 million facility, which was put in place in November 2001. Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania led the transaction and was joined by Bank of America, N.A., Hibernia National Bank and Sun Trust Bank, all of whom were participants in the previous facility. Jonathan Whitworth, Chief Executive Officer of Maritrans, commented, "We appreciate the ongoing support from our banking partners, highlighting the confidence they place in Maritrans and our strategy. The amended facility provides Maritrans with increased financial flexibility as we continue to position the Company for growth and enhanced industry leadership." The amended facility provides more favorable interest rates and covenants that are less restrictive than the previous credit facility. The interest rate under the amended credit facility will be at prime or LIBOR plus an applicable margin that varies between 75 and 150 basis points, based on the Company's financial performance. The facility continues to be secured by first preferred ship mortgages on certain fleet vessels. Maritrans also announced that it has booked a grain cargo voyage to Sri Lanka for its tanker ALLEGIANCE. The ALLEGIANCE is a single-hulled tanker that, in accordance with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, will be removed from oil-carrying service as of December 2005. As the Company has reported in the past, Maritrans has been considering alternative cargoes, including grain, MTBE and ethanol, in an effort to extend the life and contribution from the tanker. This voyage is expected to earn an accretive rate in excess of her breakeven costs. The ALLEGIANCE has been engaged to carry grain under a U.S. government charter in support of U.S. foreign aid relief efforts. The ALLEGIANCE will load in November and is scheduled to return to the U.S. by mid-January. ABOUT MARITRANS Maritrans Inc. is a U.S. based company with a 77-year commitment to building and operating petroleum transport vessels for the U.S. domestic trade. With 16 units, Maritrans has the largest fleet in its size category and one of the largest serving the U.S. coastwise trade. The fleet consists of five oil tankers and eleven oceangoing married tug/barge units with an aggregate oil-carrying capacity of approximately 3.9 million barrels, of which 63 percent is double-hulled. Maritrans has two primary areas of focus: transporting refined products in the Gulf of Mexico to growth areas such as Florida and supplying Philadelphia area refineries with crude oil lightering from large foreign tankers. Maritrans is headquartered in Tampa, Florida, and maintains an office in the Philadelphia area. SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT The information in this news release includes certain forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, growth, performance, and earnings per share or achievements to be materially different from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These statements are based on assumptions the Company believes are reasonable, but a variety of factors could cause the Company's actual results, goals, targets or objectives to differ materially from those contemplated, projected, forecast, estimated, anticipated, planned or budgeted. Such factors include, among others, changes in oil companies' decisions as to the type and origination point of the crude that it processes, changes in the amount of imported petroleum products, competition for marine transportation, domestic oil consumption, the continuation of federal law restricting United States point-to-point maritime shipping to U.S. vessels (the Jones Act), the timing and success of our double-hull rebuilding program, demand for petroleum products, future spot market rates, demand for our services, levels of foreign imports, changes in interest rates, the effect of war or terrorist activities and the general financial, economic, environmental and regulatory conditions affecting the oil and marine transportation industry in general. The Company is under no duty to update any of these forward-looking statements after the date of this release to conform such statements to actual results.
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