CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) said delivery of a US$150 million cargo ship would be delayed by about three months due to damage caused by Typhoon Meranti.
The nation’s only publicly traded shipbuilder said that the 14,000 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) cargo ship commissioned by Canada’s Seaspan Corp would be delivered in December instead of this month, as the vessel sustained damage when the typhoon tore through the company’s shipyard in Kaohsiung on Wednesday last week, it said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday.
All 38 10cm-thick cables that secured the ship to its moorings snapped under the strain of gusts, sending the ship adrift, the company said.
The ship could not be reined in, despite three hours of efforts by six tugboats, and crashed into four overhead cranes at a dock operated by Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), with its bridge getting stuck under one of the cranes, the company added.
No one was injured in the incident, it said.
CSBC said that its own cranes and equipment also sustained collision damage during the typhoon.
“We are in negotiations with our builder’s risk insurer, and expect to complete repairs and resume operations shortly,” the company said.
CSBC added that it does not expect to pay a high deductible.
In 2013, Seaspan commissioned CSBC to build five 14,000 TEU cargo ships, of which three have been delivered. The vessel damaged by last week’s typhoon was the fourth.
CSBC reported that aggregate sales in the first eight months declined 18.04 percent annually to NT$11.9 billion (US$375.5 million) amid a global downturn in global trade and the container shipping sector.
In related news, CSBC and other shipbuilders and suppliers showcased their capabilities at the Kaohsiung International Maritime and Defense Industry Expo — which took place from Friday last week to yesterday — in response to the government’s plan to build an indigenous submarine fleet.
CSBC unveiled a model of its submarine design, while several other suppliers exhibited control systems, high-tensile steel for hull construction and low-noise mechanical propulsion systems.
The exhibition drew more than 50,000 visitors, organizers said.
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