Carriers Say Most Cargo on Fire-Hit Espirito Santo Express May Be Lost
Shippers with boxes aboard the Espirito Santo Express have been told to expect the worst. Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express (ONE) now say most of the cargo is likely badly damaged or lost, more than two weeks after a fire broke out at sea.
A fire in the South Atlantic
The Espirito Santo Express is a Singapore-flagged containership built in 2018, with a capacity of 11,800 TEU. A TEU is the standard twenty-foot container unit used to measure ship size. Hapag-Lloyd charters the vessel from Seaspan.
The fire started on October 15 while the ship was sailing from Singapore to Santos, Brazil. Seaspan said on October 22 that smoke, then flames, appeared in cargo stowed in a bay ahead of the accommodation block.
The Portuguese-flagged bulk carrier Aeolian Arrow took in all 28 crew members after they abandoned the burning vessel. The rescue ended in tragedy. According to Portuguese maritime accident investigators, that ship's chief officer fell overboard while its rescue boat was being recovered and could not be found.
What the carriers are telling customers
Both lines passed on information from the ship's owner, Seaspan. In its latest update, Hapag-Lloyd said it expected "the vast majority of the cargo to be either severely damaged by the fire or a total loss".
ONE issued a similar warning and confirmed Seaspan's assessment. The vessel was running on ONE's East Coast South America Express 1 service, known as SX1.
The state of individual containers is still unknown. Hapag-Lloyd says it will contact customers whose shipments may be salvageable and arrange cargo surveys after the ship docks and a first damage check is done.
Waiting for a port of refuge
The fire is now under control, but the ship has not yet reached a port of refuge, where the full extent of the damage can be judged. Hapag-Lloyd warned that the work ahead, from securing the ship to checking the cargo, will be lengthy.
Neither carrier has given a date for the ship's arrival. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Our View
For shippers, the question has moved from whether the cargo survived to what happens to it now. Hapag-Lloyd plans cargo surveys for shipments that may be salvageable, so the outcome for individual customers likely depends on them. The investigation into the cause may also matter for who is held responsible, and the ship's arrival date will set the pace for all of it.
Source: gCaptain