The company that owns the Ever Geffen ship announces that it has reached a settlement with the Suez Canal Authority
A spokesman for the Japanese company, "Shui Keisen Kaisha", which owns the giant tanker "Ever Given", which ran aground in the Suez Canal earlier this year, announced that a settlement had been reached with the Suez Canal Authority.
The company's spokesman said that the container tanker will be released on Wednesday, without giving any details about the agreement with the Canal Authority.
The British law firm "Stan Marine", which represents owners and insurers, recently announced that after weeks of intense negotiations with the negotiating committee in the Suez Canal Authority, an agreement was reached "in principle between the two parties."
The tanker, one of the largest around the world, had been stranded for about a week in the Suez Canal last March, which impeded navigation through the vital shipping lane for global trade. The ship is 400 meters long and 59 meters wide, with a total tonnage of 224,000 tons.
The Suez Canal initially demanded compensation of more than 900 million dollars, before reducing it to about 550 million dollars.
In return, the company that owns the tanker and the insurance companies for the ship offered $150 million. The final settlement value was not disclosed.
The tanker was chartered by the Taiwanese company "Evergreen", and ran aground when it was sailing from China to Rotterdam.
Since the flotation of the tanker, it is being held in the Great Bitter Lake, which separates the northern part of the Suez Canal from the southern part.
For his part, Lieutenant-General Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, said in a statement to the private Egyptian channel "Cairo and the People" last night, that the rights of the Suez Canal Authority were fully preserved, refusing to disclose the amount of compensation, for signing the confidentiality agreement.
He stated that the authority maintained relations with the company that owns the stranded ship, and political relations with the State of Japan, adding that the crisis of the stranded ship drew the world's attention to the Suez Canal Authority and to the importance of the canal for the world.
He said that on Wednesday, the final signing of a contract related to the settlement will be made, while allowing the tanker to leave, explaining that the ship-owning company gifted the canal a tug with a tensile strength of about 75 tons.
He pointed out, according to the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Shorouk, that the channel achieved revenues of up to three billion dollars during the first six months of this year, an increase of 8.8% over the same period last year.
