The fire-hit disaster ship Fremantle Highway cannot leave Eemshaven under its own power. The question remains where and whether the floating junkyard with still some 2,800 charred cars on board will be renovated or demolished.
“The ship must be towed out of Eemshaven,” says Peter Berdowski, director of Boskalis. This salvage company managed to tow the burning Fremantle Highway into Eemshaven at the beginning of August.
A fire broke out on board the car freighter on July 25 this year. The Fremantle Highway flew under the Panamanian flag, but has a Japanese owner. One of the 23 crew members lost his life and several were injured in the disaster.
‘Demolition or repair possible in Europe’
The Boskalis boss says there are options in Europe to repair or demolish the Fremantle Highway. Berdowski does not know whether Boskalis will tow the disaster ship again: “Not if it involves towing over a short distance. But if it concerns a place at a great distance, then perhaps yes.”
For Boskalis, the work is now complete according to the contract. According to Berdowski, the insurers’ experts have not yet determined whether the ship and cargo (3,783 cars, of which about 500 are electric) are a ‘total loss’.
Most of 3783 cars still in disaster ship
Contrary to previous media reports last week, the salvage company was far from emptying the disaster ship. Working on the upper decks 5 to 12, which had become unstable due to the fire, was too dangerous for that. According to Berdowski, Boskalis was able to remove a total of ‘almost a thousand cars’ that were on decks 1 to 4. The salvor also removed the oil and stabilized the ship.
About 2,800 vehicles left behind are in a charred state. On board were Volkswagens, Mercedes, BMWs, MINIs and expensive Porsches and Rolls-Royces. The car manufacturers still have to determine what will happen to the 2,800 melted away and the almost thousand still good cars that are now in the Eemshaven.
‘All cars on the lower decks intact’
Panamanian and Dutch authorities are investigating the cause of the fire and how the assistance was provided. Berdowski: “The only relevant observation is that all cars – fossil, hybrid and electric – on the lower decks were intact. That says nothing about the cause of the fire that started on the upper decks.”
In October, Wagenborg will need Stevedoring again, where the ship is moored at their private quay. “The ship must have left no later than October 14,” says a spokesperson for Groningen Seaports. On August 10, an electric car caught fire while being unloaded. Furthermore, according to Boskalis, the clean-up went without incident.
To tap or not?
By Irene Overduin
Now that the cars from the Fremantle Highway in Eemshaven are on Dutch soil, the question is whether the Tax Authorities will take the bait.
Customs officials watched the unloading of the cars. Nearly a thousand are already in storage, apparently intact. But maybe they aren’t. By monitoring, Customs wants to prevent potentially unsafe cars from entering European roads.
Customs is also interested in the cars in another way: perhaps taxes can be levied. That has to do with the origin of the cars. Most appear to be produced in Germany, so within the European Union. But they left the Union when the Fremantle High Way on the North Sea passed the 12 mile zone. That fact makes the cars ‘non-European goods’, and so a Customs declaration had to be made for temporary storage.
This declaration does not necessarily lead to taxation. By default, in these types of cases, a shipping company is given ninety days to choose a customs procedure. There are six of these, depending on the destination. Consider transit to another EU country or beyond. Depending on the choice, different types of taxes come into play, for example sales and consumption taxes.
However, the shipping company can also choose the destination ‘destroy’. In that case the goods are not taxable.