Tanjung Priok super port - WorldCargo News Online

INSURANCE
Club launches container cover
Piracy moves
to menace
West Africa
The hijacking of the German fully cellular,
2008-built containership CITY OF
XIAMEN in late April served to illustrate
that the piracy flashpoint has moved from
Somalia, where incidents have shown a
big reduction, to West Africa. The growing
number of attacks and successful
hijackings in the Gulf of Guinea are pushing
up insurance costs and damaging and
disrupting trade, and “insider complicity”
is suspected. A report was published by
worldcargonews.com on 12 April 2012 (“Pirates
step up West African attacks”).
According to a new Reuters report,
the International Maritime Bureau, the
industry watchdog, said that 14 heavily
armed pirates attacked the vessel and
breached its citadel. The pirates took five
officers and crew captive, including the
master, before escaping with cash and the
crew. The whole incident remained
something of a mystery at the time of
writing, with the ship still anchored off
Equatorial Guinea and relatives of the
crew unable to obtain any information.
Ransom demands
But it can be said that the pirates operating
in this area are increasingly focusing
on taking hostages in order to extract ransom
payments. In a region where political
uncertainty and military actions are
documented in the media almost daily,
there is a grey area between the motives
of pirates and terrorists on land pulling
the strings, some observers assert.
It is interesting to note that at the end
of 2012 the first boxship with a built-in
citadel was delivered to its owners, Eastern
Mediterranean Maritime in Greece.
Two sister ships will follow the
1,700TEU TZINI. As an anti-piracy measure,
a citadel was incorporated in the
vessel’s design, and was fitted in the steering
gear room. Inside, the crew have control
capability of the vessel, emergency
rations, safe air supply, CCTV control,
and good external communications.
Could this be the way ahead for
containerships, at least for smaller types
Released hostages
Meanwhile, some of the seafarers who
were held hostage for almost three years
after the general cargo ship ICEBERG was
hijacked by Somali pirates were pictured
in Mumbai at a meeting of the International
Transport Workers’ Federation’s
maritime safety committee. Those present
heard of the appalling treatment suffered
by the 23 crew members during their long
ordeal, including beatings and torture.
One crewman died as a result of malnutrition,
and the seamen had to watch
their officers being hung upside down
and tortured, and the ears of a senior officer
being chopped off for failing to
move the ship.
From mid-May, a new motion picture,
A Hijacking, is on general release, inspired
by real events. The film has been widely
praised with one critic telling audiences to
prepare for nerve-shredding tension.
The ROZEN, seen on screen, was actually
hijacked by Somali pirates in 2007, and
some of its crew are also in the film, which
was shot on the cramped interior of the
vessel off the Somali coast. ❏
Norway’s Gard P&I Club has introduced
the latest product to its range, a property
policy to cover damage to or loss of containers
– on and off the ship. Launched in
March, the Container and Equipment
Cover (CEC) was developed to meet the
needs of container owners, operators or
lessees, typically liner vessel operators.
CEC will respond to theft, loss of or
damage to containers, flatracks, roll trailers
and similar equipment used for carrying
goods. In addition, it covers a container’s
contribution to general average.
CEC complements liability insurances
like P&I and the Comprehensive Carriers
Cover. But while marine liability insurance
is normally closely linked to the
insured ship, the main focus of CEC is
the cargo carrying equipment.
CEC is not restricted to sea transport.
For example, if a box sustains damage
whilst being stored at a shoreside terminal
or during inland transport by truck,
the cover may still respond.
The limit of cover is tailored according
to the insured’s needs, with a maximum
limit of US$50M for all claims arising
out of one and the same incident.
Where replacement and insured values are
different, CEC covers the lesser value.
Gard’s CEO Claes Isacson said that
since the company provided P&I and/or
marine insurance to more than half of the
world’s container fleet, extending the
product portfolio to cover the containers
themselves was a natural next step.
Exposure
He added: “Liner operators take responsibility
for the overall transport cost, time,
delivery detail and quality of their clients’
transport chains. Thus, they are increasingly
exposed to a wide range of risks in
their daily operations relating to the transportation,
storage and handling of cargo.
Our ability to offer seamless coverage is a
strong proposition.”
The new CEC cover is basically a
property insurance. What happens inside
the container while it is on the move remains
of pressing concern to all P&I clubs.
WorldCargo
news
Bad stowage
Meanwhile, the UK Club has reiterated
that one of the main contributory causes
of container cargo damage is bad stowage.
“It would seem we have merely shifted the
cargo problem further back up the transit
chain,” was its caustic remark.
A considerable proportion of the UK
club’s time is taken up handling container
cargo claims where 25% of the damage is
physical, 14% temperature-related, 11%
boxes lost overboard, 9% theft and 8%
shortage.
The club reckons that shore error now
accounts for around 27% of large container
claims, compared to 19% for all
types of cargo claims. Tie this in with bad
stowage statistics and it seems to point to
problems originating at stuffing.
However, although it is a major
cause of container cargo damage, said
the club, it would be wrong to lay the
origin of all container cargo claims on
bad stowage alone, and it lists no fewer
than 25 other reasons for damage. Its
statistics show that container cargo
claims it handles by vessel type now
occupy the No. 3 slot (15%), after
bulkers (28%) and dry cargo (25%).
As a postscript, the TT Club estimates
there are 95M loaded container movements
a year. Because of the woes currently
besetting the container trades, this
number must be suspect, but in the long
term it will rise exponentially. ❏
May 2013 83