Maersk stops
the super-container
Genoa - Maersk Line, the world's first company in the container sector,
is considering not to exercise the option to build 10 mega-ships of 18 000 TEUs from Korean shipyards Daewoo. The item circulating in the corridors of the international shipping from the end of December, but according to the German press, the company has already decided to freeze the operation, although yesterday was contacted by the nineteenth century, the Maersk explained: "We are not on changes' order, everything goes according to plan. " Unless twists, the node will be released on February 27, with the publication of the annual budget of the company. However, according to what he said last February at the former Maersk Eivind Kolding presenting the maxi-order, exercise the third option on the contract "Triple E" (a total of 30 ships of 18,000 TEUs, with a value of over $ 6 billion) there were "many unanswered questions."
Behind the choices Maersk discusses these days there would only trade even if such assessments after the incident of the "Concordia" there are many experts in marine engineering and maritime economy who are wondering what is the impact of insurance and Environment possible accidents involving these mega-ships. Large units, large economies of scale: the principle applies to cruise ships as the container. The "Project Triple E" Maersk, which from 2013 will put into circulation the largest ships in the world, aims to bring this concept to the extreme. Last year, Thomas Knudsen, head of the company's Asia-Pacific Region, said openly that the policy of large economies of scale will corner the companies that do not have the size to hold this competition. A few days before the tragedy of Lily, an expert like Andrew Chamberlain, Holman Fenwick Willan office in London, warned that the industry may soon have the "BP's platform" to say that a disaster of a mega-ship had not yet occurred , and that no one was able to evaluate the consequences.
According to Nigel Fitzgerald, insurer Crum & Foster "is true: bigger ships equals fewer trips. Less travel less accidents. But the size of new units Maersk increase the risk of "catastrophic loss" exponentially. Not so much for the value of the ship itself, but because of the transported goods: difficult - says Fitzgerald - being able to quantify the aggregate exposure to the value of a unit that carries 18 thousand containers. It is not difficult to imagine that, in the case went to the bottom of one of these ships, the insurers would have to pay damages dozens of requests. " There is also a problem of environmental safety, as revealed by Chamberlain: The largest ship is now in circulation from 14,500 TEUs. The disaster of recent times has been more on board the "MSC Napoli", in 2007, which had embarked 4,600 and a deadweight of 62 000 tons.
The question is whether Chamberlain opens today we have the means to secure the wreck of a ship which was almost four times the capacity of the "Napoli" and a deadweight of 165 thousand tons. The only answer, unfortunately, can get from the emergency management of the "Concordia" Isola del Giglio, cruise ships, but the first mega-shipwreck history.
Alberto Quarati
http://shippingonline.ilsecoloxix.i.../APqhYYjB-congela_portacontainer_maersk.shtml
