SK selects consortium to salvage ferry
Print Edition
SOUTH Korea yesterday selected a Chinese-led consortium as its preferred bidder to salvage the ferry that sank last April with the loss of 300 lives.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said it will begin negotiating next week with the consortium led by China’s state-run firm Shanghai Salvage Co, which offered to salvage the ferry at a cost of 85.1 billion won (US$74.4 million).
If a deal with Shanghai isn’t reached, the second option involves a consortium led by state-run China Yantai Salvage.
A consortium joined by Britain’s Titan Maritime Ltd and the Netherland’s Svitzer Salvage BV was the South Korean government’s third option.
Shanghai has experience in salvaging large ships and was recently involved in lifting the cruise ship that sank last month in China’s Yangtze River killing more than 400 people, said ministry official Yeon Yeong-jin.
South Korea approved the plans to salvage the “Sewol” in April, accepting the demands of the victims’ families who staged fierce protests in the capital Seoul for months. The relatives hope that raising the ship will reveal more details about the cause of the sinking and help find the bodies of the nine passengers still missing.
Experts said lifting the corroded, 6,800-ton vessel from deep beneath a channel notorious for strong currents could be potentially dangerous.
The South Korean government had originally planned to drill dozens of holes into the side of the ferry, which would allow it to be tied to two huge naval cranes that would lift the vessel from the seafloor. However, Shanghai questioned the logic of relying on cables attached to a weakening ship and instead offered to lift the ferry with a frame built with metal beams, said a ministry official on condition of anonymity.
Many shipwrecks are first cut into sections. The “Costa Concordia,” which capsized near an Italian island in 2012, killing 32 people, was raised in one piece, but the vessel wasn’t completely submerged and was pulled upright before being hoisted.
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