The decision comes in the wake of a fire aboard the Charlotte Maersk earlier this month.
“We are presently investigating exactly where and how the fire on Charlotte Maersk started,” the company said in a statement. “Calcium hypochlorite was loaded in the area of the fire, and it is a possibility that the fire could have originated from that, but that is still under investigation.
“As long as the investigation is underway, we have decided as a precaution to stop accepting calcium hypochlorite from mainland China and Hong Kong.”
Classification society Det Norske Veritas noted in 2003 that some representatives of containership companies called for new regulations to police cargoes that “DNV has traced some of the worst fires on containerships to undeclared combustible cargoes, such as shipments of the highly volatile calcium hypochlorite, a chemical compound used as a bleach and disinfectant for swimming pools.”
Maersk Line said shipments of calcium hypochlorite “already loaded to export vessels will continue to be delivered to their destination. Shipments received at the terminal but not yet loaded onto an export vessel will be returned to the shipper.'
Meanwhile, Maersk said the fire on the Charlotte Maersk, which began July 8, was extinguished and the ship berthed in Tanjung Palepas on Sunday, where special handling teams were working to unload the cargo. Containers expected to be unaffected by the fire were being discharged so that they “can proceed to our customers as quickly as possible.”
Discharge of containers deemed affected by the fire, was to be begin on Tuesday and completed this week.
The company said after cargo was unloaded, Charlotte Maersk will undergo repairs to damaged areas. It said an initial investigation indicates limited damage to some hatch covers, lashing bridges and cabling in the area where the fire was situated. After successful repairs the vessel is to re-enter the Maersk Line network in August. ' Chris Dupin and Eric Johnson
