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Egypt planning to recalculate the compensation it earlier demanded from Ever Given owner
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The ship’s insurers say even the lowered claim of $550 million is high
The dispute between Egypt and Ever Given, the firm whose container ship had blocked the Suez Canal in March, stopping the movement of ships in a waterway so crucial to global supply of goods, shows no sign of ending as the two fail to reach an amicable solution.
Egypt is planning now to recalculate the compensation it earlier demanded from the owner of the Ever Given container ship that blocked the Suez canal in March, according to the media reports.
The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) claimed more than $916 million in damages, but out-of-court negotiations lowered the figure to $550 million. However, the Ever Given’s insurers say that this demand is still too high.
“We will recalculate our demand in today’s court session,” the SCA’s lawyer, Nabil Zidan, told media on Saturday, but no new figure was disclosed. The owner has offered to pay $150 million, but the authority said that this fails to cover losses of transit fees, damage to the waterway, and costs of equipment and labor.
The Ever Given was on its way to the Dutch port of Rotterdam on March 23 when it slammed into the bank of a single-lane stretch of the canal north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez. Egypt lost between $12 million and $15 million in revenue for each day the waterway was closed, according to SCA figures.