Agulhas scrap could pull in R8.6m

WITH AbOUT two months
to go before its contract
expires, Dutch company
Mammoet Salvage is
quietly confident of
removing the entire wreck
of the Safmarine Agulhas
within the given time
frame.
The ten year old
Liberian-registered
containership, deployed on
Safmarine’s intermediate
service between Europe
and South Africa, was
on her way from East
London to Durban with
581 containers when she
apparently suffered engine
failure and ran aground
near the buffalo City’s
western breakwater on
June 26 last year.
The contract allows for
Mammoet to complete
the job within 225 days
which takes one through
to late May/early June, but
given some rather severe
weather in recent weeks
– the port of East London
shut down on March 20
for the first time in five
years – salvors are hoping
the weather will be kind
to them.
And so it has been, on
at least one occasion, as
Mammoet assistant project
manager, Edward Oele,
admitted to FTW from the
wreck site last week.
“On March 18 we had
a bit of help from the
weather conditions (high
swells and springtide) as
it helped pull the stern
section closer to shore.”
As things now stand,
the entire fore section has
been hauled onto the shore
by pulling mechanisms,
systematically cut up and
removed to an East London
scrapyard.
It has been estimated
that about 8 600 tons is
involved in the Agulhas
salvage.
Last week a well-known
Cape Town diving and
civil marine contractor
estimated the current price
of scrap to be around
R1 000 a ton which, in the
case of Safmarine Agulhas,
would equate to
R8.6 million.
The winning tender
quote was never made
known, nor the vessel’s
insured value, but German
market sources have valued
her loss at US$31.5 million.