Suez: Long term implications ??

[G-CPTN]

When you read the amounts credited to the daily delays and calculate the number of days 'saved' you can imagine the amount.
Of course there's also the cost of mobilising the equipment and manpower - and knowing where to 'cut'.

[ian16th]

I bet they have quite a p*ss up out of it!

[Undried Plum]

UP

Do you have any idea what sort of wealth the salvage guys will be sharing?

The amount awarded totally depends on the level of risk undertaken by the salvors and the amount of work undertaken. This was never a "salvor in possession" type case. None of the ship's complement was killed or even slightly injured. There was no danger of the vessel foundering. There was very little risk to the salvors. An Admiralty Court would award a rather small fraction of the £145M, or whatever, value of the ship and cargo to the salvors in such a case.

Where the big bucks will be will be in the premium rate costs of hiring the very substantial assets, such as ocean-going tugs, a great big **** crane barge etc. Providers of such assets are entitled to charge a phenomenal ad hoc dayrate premiun, many hundreds of percent over the ordinary dayrate, as they could potentially lose months and months of charter work at normal rates.

Then there's the value of the expertise of people like the Smit guys. That never ever comes cheap. Nor should it.

A senior corporate lawyer in London thinks nothing of invoicing an hourly rate of 1,250 Guineas, so they totally understand that ruffty-tufty Dutch salvagemen expect to charge two or four times that per hour for working 24 hour days. Then there's the very substantial overheads. I've worked in Smit's HQ in Zalmstraat many many times. It's not some tulip-pickers garden shed, I promise you.

Then above all else, there's Profit. Without the prospect of making loada money in net profit, you would never get any sane person to get out of bed at some godawful hour of the night and rush off to some godawful part of the world knowing that they may have to take very great personal risk, such a boarding a burning abandoned oil tanker by climbing up the anchor chain and squeezing through the hawsepipe. There has to be a hugely substantial profit motive to persuade people to do such a thing.

And finally, you have to consider the alternative to having such people on the job. $10Bns worth of goods go through that wet ditch every day. How many weeks would you let go by while some camel-shagger who drives a Cairo taxi as a dayjob fukks things up?

[ian16th]

UP
Thanks.

[tango15]

UP
Thanks.

Yes, very interesting.

[Woody]

Imagine how the Captain is going to feel when he gets the inevitable phone call asking him if he’s been in an accident recently

[llondel]

Well, there was the chap who broke the bank at Monte Carlo, this Captain could say he broke the bank at Suez.

[ian16th]

Looks to be busy today!

[4mastacker]

Imagine how the Captain is going to feel when he gets the inevitable phone call asking him if he’s been in an accident recently

Brilliant!! That made oi larf.

[Wodrick]

What is getting me is the amount of shipping queuing at either end waiting their turn.

[Pontius Navigator]

No different from a motorway pile up. Traffic building up at 15-20 kts.
Logic would dictate slowing to economical cruising speed. The heart would urge flat out to get as far up the queue as possible. My father was a dab hand at queue jumping, usually when there was a dock strike.

[Undried Plum]

MV Elise is jammed across the Arun in Littlehampton Harbour.



It's OK though. They've already got a turntable backhoe near the bows and a great big **** oceangoing tug standing by on her Port side.

[Undried Plum]

The Baltic Exchange and the denizens of the Fugly Building in Lime Street can now exhale.



She's been lassoed and tied to the taffrail of the corral.

Looking at old maps, I see that her stern is almost exactly located where my Great Uncle Wally fell off the crosstree of a square rigger into the empty hold of his ship and was killed instantly about a hundred years ago. An unnecessary factoid, I know.

[Undried Plum]

The Egyptian government has instructed the shipowner to make an out of Court settlement in excess of a Billion Dollars.

To make clear that they mean business, they told them that the ship will not be permitted to leave the canal until settlement has been made.

Very Egyptian!

[1DC]

I see that Lloyds of London expect their costs to be high, about $100,000,000

[ian16th]

The Egyptian government has instructed the shipowner to make an out of Court settlement in excess of a Billion Dollars.

To make clear that they mean business, they told them that the ship will not be permitted to leave the canal until settlement has been made.

Very Egyptian!

What about the 18,000+ owners of the contents of the containers?

Who do they sue?

[Boac]

Presumably insured, but if not, who else?

[Undried Plum]

I see that Lloyds of London expect their costs to be high, about $100,000,000

Lloyds is a market, not an insurer.

There are approximately 90 insurers in that market. £100M spread across several scores of syndicates ain't much of a hit for any particular one. A teenyweeny fraction of a biggie like Katrina or Deepwater Horizon.

I, personally, have three namecos. One is a Marine Risk one and another is a General and Re- one. They may each make a bit of a loss this year, but when averaged over last year and next year they'll both be in the black overall. In due course, they'll make up for his year's loss, and a lot more, because premiums will be 'adjusted' in the light of this very unusual event.

[Alisoncc]

If it can be proved that the "Ever Given" was driven off course by unforecast strong winds, then might it not be a "Force majeure" situation where no one can claim ? When such things happen how far can one drill down? Or are all aspects that cascade from an initial "Force majeure" covered?

[llondel]

If it can be proved that the "Ever Given" was driven off course by unforecast strong winds, then might it not be a "Force majeure" situation where no one can claim ? When such things happen how far can one drill down? Or are all aspects that cascade from an initial "Force majeure" covered?

To me, what happened is exactly the sort of thing for which I'd want insurance. It is possible to take very reasonable precaution and still be caught out by the unforeseen event. If it could be foreseen then precautions can be taken to prevent or minimise it.