The Japanese owner of a megaship seized after blocking the Suez Canal yesterday said that it is negotiating with Egyptian authorities after they demanded US$900 million in compensation for the vessel’s release.
The 200,000-tonne MV Ever Given got diagonally stuck in the crucial global trade artery in a sandstorm on March 23, triggering a mammoth six-day effort to dislodge it.
Maritime data company Lloyd’s List said that the blockage by the vessel held up an estimated US$9.6 billion of cargo between Asia and Europe each day it was stuck.
Photo: AFP
Egypt also lost between US$12 and US$15 million in revenue for each day that the waterway was closed, the Suez Canal Authority said.
The Ever Given was later seized “due to its failure to pay [US]$900 million” compensation, Suez Canal Authority chairman Osama Rabie was quoted as saying by the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper.
Its fate is “now ... in the legal arena,” a spokeswoman for the ship’s owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, told reporters.
An unnamed spokesperson was also quoted by Japan’s Jiji Press as saying that the firm was “at odds with the canal authority in talks over the appropriate amount” of compensation, but that discussions were ongoing.
The Japanese-owned, Panama-flagged and Taiwanese-operated ship was moved to unobstructive anchorage in the canal after it was freed on March 29.
Tailbacks totaling 420 vessels at the northern and southern entrances to the canal were cleared early this month.
The compensation figure was calculated based on “the losses incurred by the grounded vessel, as well as the flotation and maintenance costs,” Rabie said, citing a ruling handed down by the Ismailia Economic Court in Egypt.
The grounding of the ship and the intensive salvage efforts are also reported to have resulted in significant damage to the canal.
The Suez Canal earned Egypt just over US$5.7 billion in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, according to official figures — little changed from the US$5.3 billion earned in 2014.
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