18000箱位船带来的头痛
2011.11.16
贸易风9月21日周刊
马士基1万8箱位新船将给保险公司带来极大的头痛
总结 2005年 “APL Panama” (2000) 4,038-teu 于墨西哥西岸搁浅所作之打捞经验, 保险公司认为马士基现有之14,000-teu船和 2013年下水之18,000箱位船如有搁浅事情发生, 它的打捞工作将是不堪设想.
虽然“APL Panama” 搁浅时船上 仅有 1,800个货箱但它的公共海损 (GA)竞达6,800万美元和 1,600个人工小时去处理.
将来如有 18,000箱位船只搁浅, 它将象一座20层高之大厦 (图),目前打捞公司还没有浮吊能胜任卸出这种庞然大物甲板上的货箱, 加上如船有所倾侧或前后吃水相差太大之时,货舱内之货箱将受管道 (cell guides)之阻而无法卸出, 在此情况之下打捞时间约需4个月. 假设 18,000个货箱内货物总值为6亿美元, 船身价值 1亿9千万美元, 这个公共海损 (GA)工作将包括成万货家, 计算海损公摊需时可达5年之久和 10,000个人工/小时去完成……………..
Maersk’s 18,000-teu megaships giving insurers a king-sized headache.
The threat of one of Maersk’s biggest containerships becoming a massively costly casualty has again featured at the International Union of Marine Insurers (IUMI) conference.
Five years ago, it was worries about the 14,000-teu Emma Maersk series. This year it was the even bigger 18,000-teu vessels due to be delivered from 2013
Swiss Re underwriter Peter Townsend reminded delegates of the huge salvage effort required to discharge and refloat the 4,038-teu APL Panama (built 2000), although it had only 1,800 containers on board and suffered minimal hull damage when it grounded on a Mexican beach in 2005.
The incident produced the biggest ever general average settlement — $68m — and took 1,600 adjuster hours to resolve.
Townsend’s realistic disaster scenario involved scaling up the APL Panama case to one of Maersk’s 18,000-teu giants, which he compared to dismantling a 20-storey-high building at sea.
The cargo might be worth $600m and the ship $190m but very few cranes have the reach to remove the boxes.
In port, the largest containerships are served by five or six cranes and achieve a discharge rate of 10 to 12 containers a minute.
But a ship needs only an 11-degree bow-to-stern trim for the containers to get stuck in the guides, so minor damage can create a problem even if a ship reaches a suitable terminal, notes Townsend.
At sea, even if five containers an hour could be removed from a mega containership, it would take over four months to discharge 15,000 teu. Townsend estimated that adjusting the claim might take 10,000 man hours over five years.
He speculates that if there was a Lloyd’s open form salvage award at the usual 15% to 20% level, it might be $120m and with additional GA sacrifice and expenditure the total loss could be $200m.
“But it will never happen,” suggested Townsend, before reminding delegates that the 11,660-teu ‘MSC Luciana” (built 2009) grounded off the Netherlands this week after engine trouble, the 11,356-teu “CMA CGM Libra” (built 2009) grounded off the coast of China last month and the 6,919-teu “Al Rawdah” (built 2008) grounded off Indonesia in June.
Urgent investment in salvage equipment is needed to cope with these vessels but Townsend acknowledges this will mean bigger salvage awards.
Townsend endorsed a remark by fellow underwriter Mark Edmondson, the chairman of the London market’s Joint Hull Committee, that insurers are “funding the shipping industry’s research and development by not fully appreciating the magnitude of the risk assumed and almost certainly under-pricing that risk”.
Townsend notes that pretty much every boxship built is now bigger than the one before and this trend is not confined to liner shipping — there is already a concept for a 600,000-dwt bulker, a vessel 50% bigger than the latest Chinamaxes.
By Jim Mulrenan Paris
Published: 22:01 GMT, 22 Sep 11 | updated: 20:10 GMT, 21 Sep 11
