When you cannot shift a ship that is stuck fast into the wall of a canal vital to world trade, there is only one thing to do: call the salvage guys.
The MV Ever Given, a 200,000-tonne container ship, has since Tuesday morning been blocking what is arguably the world’s most important waterway, the Suez Canal.
The struggle to dislodge it is now turning the world’s attention to the work of SMIT Salvage, a legendary Dutch firm whose employees parachute themselves from one ship wreckage to the next, saving vessels often during violent storms.
Photo: Reuters
The company is synonymous with some of the most daring naval salvages, including lifting a sunken Russian nuclear submarine in 2001 and removing fuel from inside the Costa Concordia cruise ship after it ran aground in Italy in 2012.
SMIT, a unit of Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, is one of the companies appointed by Ever Given’s owner to help move the vessel.
The first job will be to work out exactly how entrenched in the wall the ship is, Boskalis spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer said.
“It will be critical to inspect the vessel and how deeply it is lodged in the embankment,” Schuttevaer said. “The question is how solidly she has been grounded.”
The answer to that question will dictate what comes next.
The salvors could have to find a way to lighten the vessel’s enormous weight so that it can be pulled to a less obstructive position. At the moment, it is blocking the path of more than 100 vessels.
The canal handles about 10 percent of seaborne trade, spanning everything from finished goods to oil, gas and dry-bulk commodities. Those cargoes are not flowing while the Ever Given is stuck.
The process of making the ship lighter means removing things like the ballast water, which helps keep ships steady at sea.
Fuel would probably have to be unloaded, too, Schuttavaer said.
In a worst-case scenario, it could be that some of the carrier’s containers — usually filled with everything from furniture to televisions — might have to be taken off.
How long that process would take depends on how much equipment is available to do the heavy lifting. It can often involve flying in helicopters to remove the crates one by one.
SMIT was due to fly in a team of eight experts early yesterday to board and inspect the vessel, and the grounding.
A big part of the initial underwater assessment is how much the banks slope at that point in the canal.
Japan’s Nippon Salvage Co has also been hired to assist in the refloating, a person familiar with the matter said.
Such teams are usually led by a salvage master, often a former captain or someone with knowledge of the industry, but can also include divers, welders and crane operators, said Joseph Farrell, director of business development at Resolve Marine, another company that offers salvage services.
He declined to comment specifically on the Ever Given.
Pictures show the vessel spread fully across the canal, pointing to the first major hurdle.
It ran aground at the front and at the back, almost perpendicular to the canal walls.
That is leaving very little room to simply tow it away from either end, SMIT said.
For now, the focus is on dredging around the vessel. The canal authority has dispatched two dredgers, the Mashor and the 10th of Ramadan, to remove sand from underwater before rescuers attempt to pull it.
From the shore, excavators are also working around the vessel.
Shipping experts who analyzed photos of the Ever Given calculated that its protruding bulb was as much as 5m buried into the canal wall.
Not everything in the grounding has been bad news.
One thing that is likely to make the process easier is that the ship has gotten itself stuck in sand, rather than rock. More malleable material around the Ever Given should make for a smoother escape.
There are already tug boats around the ship working to help with its removal, but with such a giant vessel, bigger ones with more horsepower are usually needed.
Crews are hoping that periods of higher tide over the next few days would be conducive to helping free the Ever Given.
Until then, the world’s commodity and maritime markets — and the world trade they serve — will be left hanging, waiting on the professionals to help shift the ship.
“There’s only a few companies in the world that do what we do,” Farrell said. “It’s a challenge, the container ships are always the biggest jobs.”
Three experts in the high technology industry have said that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors is part of an effort to force Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to the negotiating table. In a speech to Republicans on Jan. 27, Trump said he intends to impose tariffs on Taiwan to bring chip production to the US. “The incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” he said. Darson Chiu (邱達生), an economics professor at Taichung-based Tunghai University and director-general of
‘LEGACY CHIPS’: Chinese companies have dramatically increased mature chip production capacity, but the West’s drive for secure supply chains offers a lifeline for Taiwan When Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) entered a deal with the eastern Chinese city of Hefei in 2015 to set up a new chip foundry, it hoped the move would help provide better access to the promising Chinese market. However, nine years later, that Chinese foundry, Nexchip Semiconductor Corp (合晶集成), has become one of its biggest rivals in the legacy chip space, leveraging steep discounts after Beijing’s localization call forced Powerchip to give up the once-lucrative business making integrated circuits for Chinese flat panels. Nexchip is among Chinese foundries quickly winning market share in the crucial US$56.3 billion industry of so-called legacy
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday held its first board of directors meeting in the US, at which it did not unveil any new US investments despite mounting tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Trump has threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, prompting market speculation that TSMC might consider boosting its chip capacity in the US or ramping up production of advanced chips such as those using a 2-nanometer technology process at its Arizona fabs ahead of schedule. Speculation also swirled that the chipmaker might consider building its own advanced packaging capacity in the US as part
A move by US President Donald Trump to slap a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports is expected to place Taiwan-made steel, which already has a 25 percent tariff, on an equal footing, the Taiwan Steel & Iron Industries Association said yesterday. Speaking with CNA, association chairman Hwang Chien-chih (黃建智) said such an equal footing is expected to boost Taiwan’s competitive edge against other countries in the US market, describing the tariffs as "positive" for Taiwanese steel exporters. On Monday, Trump signed two executive orders imposing the new metal tariffs on imported steel and aluminum with no exceptions and exemptions, effective