[imagesource: Maxar Technologies]

For a brief moment in time, the world (or at least many on social media) were united by one thing.

No, not the pandemic, but rather the plight of the Ever Given, the cargo ship that became wedged across the Suez Canal.

The memes were priceless, although if you had to put a value on them, you could start with the almost $10 billion in daily global trade that was being disrupted by the blockage.

That’s around $400 million an hour.

When you consider those numbers, perhaps the Ever Given got off lightly, with CNN reporting the latest:

Egyptian authorities have seized a massive cargo ship which blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week last month, amid a dispute over financial damages…

An Egyptian court ordered the vessel’s Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, to pay $900 million in compensation as a result of losses inflicted when the Panamanian-flagged Ever Given prevented marine traffic from transiting through the vital global trade waterway.

The hefty bill also includes maintenance fees and the costs of the rescue operation…

Still, $900 million is nothing to scoff at, and that’s going to put a dent in your bottom line.

In response, Shoei Kisen Kaisha says a team of lawyers is working on the compensation claim, and wouldn’t comment further.

UK Club, the protection and indemnity insurer for the Ever Given, wasn’t as coy:

Its statement went on to explain why UK Club believes the magnitude of the claim is not valid.

“The SCA has not provided a detailed justification for this extraordinarily large claim, which includes a US$300 million claim for a ‘salvage bonus’ and a US$300 million claim for ‘loss of reputation.’

Image: CNN

The grounding resulted in no pollution and no reported injuries. The vessel was re-floated after six days and the Suez Canal promptly resumed their commercial operations. The claim presented by the SCA also does not include the professional salvor’s claim for their salvage services which owners and their hull underwriters expect to receive separately,” the UK Club statement said.

That pollution claim is contestable, given that the log jam in the canal last month produced a spike in ship pollution that was visible from space.

According to the BBC, after the ship became wedged, it forced hundreds of other ships to park and wait:

This helped push the concentration of sulphur dioxide (SO2) in the air to five times normal levels on the Mediterranean side of the canal.

SO2 is a by-product of the type of heavy fuel oils burnt by ship engines…