Evergreen Marine Corp.
is considering removing thousands of containers from its Ever given ship to move the goods to their final destinations after an Egyptian court seized the giant cargo ship over a compensation dispute.
“Customers are asking when their boxes will be delivered after the ship is confiscated and there is now on the table the possibility of moving the containers to other ships and delivering them to customers in Europe,” said a person directly involved in the subject.
“It won’t be easy to do, but there are several options,” that person said. “Empty ships can be deployed to pick up boxes and some can be loaded onto other container ships crossing the same route to Europe.”
On March 23, it ran aground in the Suez Canal on March 23 while transporting about 18,000 loaded containers, in equivalent units of 20-foot containers, a standard maritime measure, from Asia to Europe. Rescue crews released the ship six days later, but it remains in a detention area on the canal while the Suez Canal Authority is pursuing a $ 916 million claim against the ship’s owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. , based in Japan, including the cost of recovery and other damages.
Taiwan’s Evergreen was operating the ship with a long-term lease from boat owner Shoei Kisen when Ever Upon ran aground.
Moving the cargo to another ship would be a physical challenge and may require the ship to be moved from its anchorage to the Great Bitter Lake of the canal to nearby Port Said in Egypt. Any effort to eliminate shipments would be complicated by the legal claims and fees surrounding the ship and its cargo customers.
Shoei Kisen has invoked the legal shipping clause known as the general average that requires companies with cargo on a ship in distress to participate in the cost of recovering the ship.
Evergreen said in a statement that it is examining the Egyptian court order allowing the ship to be detained “and is studying the possibility of the ship and the cargo on board being treated separately.”
The Suez shutdown has added to delivery delays and rising costs for cargo owners and has further strained a shipping industry that has been struggling with capacity constraints and congestion from disruptions caused by Covid-19 pandemic. Evergreen has not identified the customers whose shipments have been shipped, but some companies have noted the potential impact on their operations.
German discount supermarket Aldi, which runs 10,000 stores in 20 countries, said last month in a Facebook post that a range of products, from rugs to bicycles and driving accessories that would supposedly reach its shelves in March and April, it will be delayed by about a month on average.
“Sorry, the special purchases you are looking for may have been delayed due to current events,” the supermarket said.
American furniture manufacturer La-Z-Boy Inc.
he said at an investor conference on March 24 that he had five containers on the ship.
The UK’s P&I Club, the insurer of the Ever Ever Company, said the $ 916 million claim was “largely incompatible” and lacked “a detailed justification”.
“The grounding did not cause contamination or injuries were reported. The ship was re-floated after six days and the Suez Canal quickly resumed its commercial operations, “it said in a statement this week.
The ship has been deemed safe for navigation by the American Bureau of Shipping, a maritime classification company, which said it could be moved to Port Said for new controls and then to Rotterdam, its original destination.
Write to Costas Paris at [email protected] and Joyu Wang at [email protected]
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It appeared in the April 17, 2021 print edition as “The Suez Ship’s Cargo Can Be Removed.”