MEGA-CONTAINER DISASTER COULD BE INDUSTRY'S "DEEPWATER HORIZON"

The maritime industry could face its own "Deepwater Horizon" event that will change the currently accepted insurance arrangements if a mega containership – some of which carry more than 15,000 containers – were to suffer a similar accident to that which befell the MV Rena, according to Andrew Chamberlain, partner at Holman Fenwick Willan. Speaking at a Maritime London function on January 11, Mr Chamberlain said that the salvage industry – which had limited and ageing resources – would struggle to cope with the removal of the containers and wreckage of the larger classes of containerships. He warned that there were only four or five companies with a genuine global salvage capability. Meanwhile, said Mr Chamberlain, the legal environment for coping with these types of incidents was becoming "increasingly demanding". Clean-up costs were becoming "disproportionately high", while it was almost impossible to either dispose of or recycle a wreck. In addition, the industry was now in a position where there were high cargo values relative to ship values and "ever larger and untested ships".