Cargo insurer WK Webster is reporting that general average looks to have been declared by the owners of the wrecked Dali containership which destroyed Baltimore’s largest bridge and crippled the city’s port operations last month.
General average means all parties involved with the cargo will have to share in the cost of the salvage operations.
Ahead of what will be years of legal wrangling, the owner and manager of the Dali have sought to limit potential pay-outs from the big Baltimore bridge allision which killed six road maintenance workers.
On April 1, Singapore-based Grace Ocean and shipmanager Synergy Marine filed a limitation of liability court petition seeking to cap their liability to just $43.6m, in a case that overall is expected to see pay-outs in the billions of dollars.
Records look set to be broken in terms of shipping insurance payouts for the Dali incident.
To date, the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruiseship in 2012 and 2021’s Ever Given incident stand out as the largest casualty pay-outs this century, but early estimates are that the total costs from Tuesday’s extraordinary accident involving the 9,962 teu Dali containership could dwarf those infamous accidents.
The head of Lloyd’s of London warned last month that the Dali could prove to be the largest marine pay-out in insurance history.
At the scene of the ongoing salvage work to move the sunken bridge and damaged boxship, operations continue at pace.
“There has been incredible progress this week towards our goal to open the limited access deep draft channel,” said Colonel Estee Pinchasin, commander of the Baltimore District of the US Army Corps of Engineers yesterday. “Our amazing team of local, state, federal and community responders remain focused on the safe and efficient removal of debris and wreckage from the federal channel and waterway.”
