As Hapag-Lloyd confirmed, Yantian Express safely arrived at Halifax on May 20, 2019. Now, the ship is berthed at the terminal and has started discharging its cargo. The ship must also back load empty containers to achieve the necessary stability criteria to perform a safe passage to Asia where it will undergo permanent repairs.
The intent now is to totally discharge all containers, which are more than 3,200 in Halifax. When ashore, containers for which General Average and Salvage security has been provided will be stacked apart from those which remain unsecured.
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It is expected that the discharge of the 3,200 containers will last about 85 hours of work. During this time, Yantian Express must, at times, shift along the berth in order to enable access to other regularly scheduled vessels, and will then shift back to continue cargo operations.
In addition, the the actual discharge operation will take 12 days or more. Under these operations, the vessel must also back load empty containers to achieve the necessary stability criteria for a safe passage to Asia where it will undergo permanent repairs.
However, Hapag-Lloyd stated that:
In light of these given circumstances, kindly appreciate that we are not in a position at this moment to estimate when specific containers will be discharged and when secured containers will move forward to their final destination
Concerning the fire incident that caused damage, the fire broke out on 3 January in one of the containers onboard the 7,510 TEU container ship ‘Yantian Express’ approximately 1,015 miles northeast of Bermuda and spread to additional containers. The ship was en route from Colombo to Halifax via the Suez Canal, at the time of the incident.
The vessel arrived at Freeport, Bahamas (port of refuge) on 4 February. By late March 2019, all containers in the fire impacted areas in way of cargo holds 1 and 2 (on and under deck) had been discharged from the vessel.
