NORMAL cargo operation has
resumed on Taiwanese shipping line Yang
Ming's YM Eternity containership
which had been arrested in Sydney on Sunday.
"YM Eternity has been
released from arrest and normal cargo operation has been resumed
immediately," a corporate communique said.
The carrier apologised to
customers and claimed the Australian
Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) had
arrested the YM Eternity "in a way that caused unnecessary and maximum
inconvenience to Sydney customers on a Sunday and without any notice."
The vessel was arrested after the
AMSA petitioned the country's federal court, claiming the shipping line had
refused to pay clean-up costs following the loss of 81 containers into the sea
from the 4,250
TEU YM Efficiency in June 2018 off the
Australian coast, reports The
Loadstar of UK.
AMSA said 60 containers had been
identified, another five recovered and 16 remained unaccounted for.
It has signed a AUD15 million
(US$670,000) contract with Ardent Oceania for the removal of the 60 boxes,
while "the anticipated cost to locate and clean-up the remaining missing
16 containers is a further AUD5 million, bringing Yang Ming's debt to AUD20
million".
However, Yang Ming responded that
its anti-pollution efforts had been sufficient.
"Yang Ming and our insurer
responded quickly and effectively to the incident with the immediate allocation
of very significant resources and manpower to the loss of the containers and
their contents.
"Yang Ming has been ever
since committed to keeping the Hunter Coast pristine and working with the New
South Wales government to ensure all debris that could possibly be associated
with the incident is cleaned up within hours of its being reported - even if it
was not actually from cargo on the ship. These clean-up operations were at very
large expense, all paid by Yang Ming and our insurer."
And it also claimed that, for a
significant number of containers lying in deep water, their removal would be
more environmentally damaging than simply leaving them untouched.
"The operation to remove the
containers shall result in plastics within the containers being released into
the ocean. As a consequence, these experts have recommended, considering all
the environmental factors, the containers are best left on the sea floor
pending further monitoring of the release of plastics," it said.
Source : HKSG.
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