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SALVAGING the toxic cargo inside Sulpicio Lines Inc.’s
sunken vessel MV Princess of the Stars will have to wait
a little longer after the US-based salvage company Titan
Salvage tasked to do the job has required the shipping
firm for a London-based guarantor, according to
Transport Undersecretary Maria Elena Bautista.
The
request resulted in the postponement of the contract
signing with Sulpicio, which was scheduled to Wednesday
or Thursday this week.
“They
need security cover. So it wants assurance that it will
be paid once Sulpicio is not able to pay them,” she said
after the board meeting of the Maritime Industry
Authority late Monday.
“It will
be up to them [Sulpicio] to sell their company [to
creditors]… and I think they are creditworthy.”
Titan is
requiring a guarantee from a British company since if
arbitration should be required, such as a default in
payment, it will take place there.
Sulpicio
is not a member of any protection-and-indemnity club,
which is not required by Philippine laws. Its only
insurance cover is on hull and machinery through
Oriental Assurance Corp., and passenger, which is a
compulsory requirement by the government.
Titan
needs least 21 days to mobilize all the equipment and 30
days to get the vessel’s entire crude load and the other
cargoes, including the toxic chemical endusulfan. That
means retrieval operations can only start on the second
week of August at the earliest.
The firm
was able to trim down the total price of salvaging the
cargoes to $7.5 million from $8.9 million after the
government promised them some support other than
financial assistance.
The
government has decided to prioritize extracting the
cargoes and fuel from the sunken 23,824-gross-
registered-ton vessel rather than trying to refloat it.
Sources
said refloating the vessel would need another salvor to
do the job.
Bautista
said that after the cargoes and fuel are extricated,
they would retrieve some 500 bodies still inside the
capsized vessel. |
