Insurer for Suez grounded ship appeals detention by Egypt
UK Club, an insurer of the Ever Given cargo ship which ran aground in the Suez Canal in March, said on Friday it had filed an appeal in an Egyptian court over the detention of the vessel by authorities.
The Ever Given has been anchored in a lake between two sections of the canal since being dislodged on March 29 and is caught in a legal dispute linked to a $916 compensation claim made by the SCA against the ship’s Japanese owner.
UK Club, the Ever Given’s protection & indemnity (P&I) insurer, said the move was necessary as it had not been possible to resolve the issue without continued involvement of the Egyptian courts.
“The appeal against the arrest was made on several grounds, including the validity of the arrest obtained in respect of the cargo and the lack of supporting evidence for the (Suez Canal Authority’s) very significant claim,” it said.
The Suez Canal Authority said on Sunday that investigations into the Ever Given’s grounding were continuing alongside efforts to reach an agreement with the ship’s insurer and owner.
UK Club said last week the canal’s claim included $300 million for a “salvage bonus” and $300 million for “loss of reputation”.
A hearing on the appeal would be held on May 4, it said.
Last week, the Suez Canal Authority allowed two crew members from the vessel to return home to India, a move UK Club said was encouraging.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jonathan Saul, writing by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Jason Neely and Edmund Blair)
Egypt’s Suez canal revenues rise to $1.907bln in first four months
Egypt’s Suez canal revenues rose to $1.907 billion in the first four months of 2020 from $1.869 billion during the same period a year prior, its chairman said.
The canal is the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia and one of the Egyptian government’s main sources of foreign currency.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Momen Saeed Atallah and Nadine Awadalla Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Egypt nets $2.3bln from Suez Canal in 7 months
Tax and non-tax proceeds from Egypt’s Suez Canal fell by 4.7% year-on-year (YoY) to EGP 35.91 billion during the first seven months of fiscal year 2019/2020, compared to EGP 37.7 billion.
Taxes on Suez Canal’s earnings reached EGP 18.8 billion from July 2019 to last January, compared to EGP 19.4 billion in the year-ago period, according to recent data released by the Ministry of Finance.
Meanwhile, non-tax proceeds from Suez Canal retreated to EGP 17.11 billion in the seven-month period from EGP 18.3 billion in the corresponding period in FY18/19.
The drop in proceeds from Suez Canal was ascribed to the recent appreciation of the Egyptian pound against the US dollar and a slowdown in international trade growth.
It is noteworthy to mention that Egypt’s total revenues increased to EGP 473.42 billion in the July-January period from EGP 459.05 billion in the prior-year period.
Egypt’s Suez Canal shipping traffic unaffected by coronavirus
Traffic in Egypt’s Suez Canal has so far been unaffected by the spread of the coronavirus, the chief of its authority said on Wednesday, citing a 4.6% increase year-on-year in the number of ships passing through.The canal is the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia and one of the Egyptian government’s main sources of foreign currency.
The container shipping industry, a bellwether for international trade, has been blown off course by the new virus, which brought parts of China to a standstill before spreading around the world, leading container lines to re-route cargoes and reduce calls to Chinese ports.
However, the number of ships passing through the canal in the first quarter of 2020 increased by 8.4% compared with the same period a year prior, Osama Rabie said.
Suez Canal revenues increased to $458.2 million in February compared with $433.9 million during the same month last year.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Momen Saeed Atallah; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Alex Richardson)