Egyptian authorities have arrested the container ship Ever Given, which had blocked traffic on the Suez Canal last month due to continuing financial disputes with the shipowners, the canal’s chief of staff and justice official said.
The ship “Ever Given” will not be able to leave Egypt until the amount of compensation is agreed with the shipowners of the Japanese company “Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd”, said Lieutenant Osama Rabie, the head of the Suez Canal administration.
“The ship has now been officially arrested,” he told an Egyptian state television channel. “They don’t want to pay anything.”
Rabie did not disclose how much the channel’s administration wanted to receive, while an Egyptian justice official said it was $ 900 million (€ 769 million). The government newspaper Ahram also mentioned this amount.
This amount includes the cost of the decommissioning operation, the suspended canal traffic costs and the loss of transit revenue that occurred during the week that Ever Given blocked the canal.
A court in Ismailia, adjacent to the canal, arrested the ship on Monday and the ship’s crew was informed of the decision on Tuesday, the official said.
Ismailian prosecutors have also launched a separate investigation into what caused Ever Given to run aground.
Rabie said talks on compensation are ongoing.
Speaking to the state TV channel, he denied that the channel’s management was guilty of any wrongdoing.
He declined to discuss the possible causes of the accident, including the speed of the ship and the strong winds during the sandstorm.
Asked if the shipowners were to blame, Rabie said, “Of course yes.”
According to Rabie, the conclusion of the administrative investigation is expected on Thursday.
The Panama-flagged 400-meter-long and 59-meter-wide ship Ever Given turned sideways in bad weather on March 23 and got stuck, completely stopping sailing in the Suez Canal.
The ship, which belongs to the Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha and is operated by the Taiwanese company Evergreen Marine, was en route from Tanjongpelepa in Malaysia to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
On March 29, it was successfully removed from the beach. The ship is currently calling at the Great Bitter Lake, located between the northern and southern parts of the Suez Canal.
The Suez Canal, excavated more than 150 years ago, is one of the world’s most important trade routes.
Last year, almost 19,000 ships passed through the canal, carrying more than one billion tons of cargo.
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