Specialist salvage teams join efforts to refloat Suez Canal ship -maritime expert

Record ID: 1608179

  • Title: Specialist salvage teams join efforts to refloat Suez Canal ship -maritime expert
  • Date: 25th March 2021
  • Summary: BUIES CREEK, NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES (MARCH 25, 2021) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MARITIME HISTORIAN AT CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY, SAL MERCOGLIANO, PhD, ABOUT THE SALVAGE EFFORTS OF THE LAST 24 HOURS, INCLUDING UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS LAST NIGHT AND AGAIN ON THURSDAY MORNING, SUEZ TIME, TO FREE THE SHIP BY PULLING ON THE VESSEL IN THE TIDE, SAYING: "One of the things tha
  • Embargoed: 8th April 2021 17:14
  • Keywords: Campbell University Ever Given Sal Mercogliano Suez Canal container ships maritime accidents maritime historian salvage company
  • Location: BUIES CREEK, NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES / SUEZ CANAL, EGYPT
  • City: BUIES CREEK, NORTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES / SUEZ CANAL, EGYPT
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: Disaster/Accidents,Sea Accidents,Middle East
  • Reuters ID: LVA001E5L1AH3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The Salvage team from the Netherlands hired to help devise a plan to refloat a giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal is considered the 'special forces' of salvage companies, an American maritime historian told Reuters on Thursday (March 25).
    Dutch firm Smit Salvage will likely try to take advantage of the maximum tide levels to pull the stranded vessel way from the bank of the canal but the highest tide is not until March 31, maritime historian Sal Mercogliano told Reuters.
    Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corp said Japan's Nippon Salvage had also been appointed by the ship's owner to help in the salvage operations and would work alongside its captain and the Suez Canal Authority on a plan to refloat it.
    Among other things, the salvage teams will likely try to start trying to offload water, ballast, oil and fuel from the vessel, Mercogliano said, as well as bring additional dredging equipment.
    "They have to be very careful about this," he cautioned. "You could conceivably crack the hull, cause an oil spill. But worse, catastrophically fracture the vessel in half, which would close the canal for months, if not years, to salvage a vessel of that type," Mercogliano said when envisioning what might be a worst case scenario.
    The Ever Given container ship, owned by Japan's Shoei Kisen, was grounded amid high winds in a southern section of the canal on Tuesday (March 23), forcing a suspension of shipping as tugs try to refloat it.
    The 400 m (430 yard) Ever Given, almost as long as the Empire State Building is high, is blocking transit in both directions through one of the world's busiest shipping channels for oil and grain and other trade linking Asia and Europe.
    The blockage comes on top of the disruption to world trade already caused in the past year by COVID-19, with trade volumes hit by high rates of ship cancellations, shortages of containers and slower handling speeds at ports.
    "The potential for this is to magnify," Mercogliano told Reuters. "Worst case scenario this goes on for a month to clear the vessel, that's going to cause a massive disruption in the economy," he said, adding that the parallel in this scenario would be the COVID-19 global slowdown after China had to shut down in the spring of 2020.
    Mercogliano also said various stakeholders of the one of the world's largest container ships face claims totaling millions of dollars even if the ship is refloated quickly, echoing what industry sources had said on Wednesday (March 24).
    The ship's owner, Japanese firm Shoei Kisen KK, and its insurers could face claims from the SCA for loss of revenue and from other ships whose passage has been disrupted, insurers and brokers said.
    In addition, owners of the cargo on board the ship and on other ships stuck in the Canal will likely claim from the ship's liability insurer for losses to perishable goods or missed delivery deadlines, sources told Reuters, including a shipping lawyer who declined to be named.
    "You may see the seventh largest container line operator in the world go under because of claims against it," Mercogliano said of Evergreen. "It's one of Taiwan's largest companies right now. And should she go under, that's going to impact the Taiwanese economy greatly, he said."
    (Production: Mana Rabiee)
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