Salvager sets high price on cargo from ship on New Zealand reef

Nov 30, 2011, 23:26 GMT

Wellington - The Dutch Svitzer Salvage company, which has been working for more than two months on the stricken ship Rena stuck on a New Zealand reef, confirmed Thursday that it had set a high price on the cargo as a guarantee it would be paid.

'No one knows how long this job is going to go on or how much it will cost,' spokesman Matthew Watson told Radio New Zealand. 'Svitzer needs security and guarantee that it's being paid for the work.'

He refused to confirm a report that the company was claiming 80 per cent of the value of each consignment on the 47,000-ton container ship - a figure Television New Zealand reported was the highest rate ever charged on goods salvaged from a vessel.

Watson would not reveal the exact figure for reasons of commercial confidence, but said: 'The bar in the Rena case has been set quite high, simply because it reflects the protracted and complicated and time-consuming job of this case.'

TVNZ said the previous highest charge was 60 per cent for cargo retrieved from the wreck of the ship Napoli in January 2007 off the west coast of England.

New Zealander Craig Fellows said he faced having to pay 80 per cent of the 100,000 New Zealand dollars (76,000 US dollars) worth of household goods, including a car, he has in a container on the ship, which ran aground on October 5 off the port of Tauranga.

Watson said Svitzer was acting in accordance with standard procedures for the salvage of a ship. If people had insured their goods on the vessel, they would get them back or the insurance value of their loss.

Svitzer did not start removing the more than 1,300 containers on board the ship until November 16, making its priority to pump off heavy fuel oil, which had started leaking into the sea, creating New Zealand's worst-ever maritime environmental disaster.

A total of 165 containers had been lifted off by a crane-equipped boat by Tuesday, when bad weather halted the operation.