Costa Lines has asked ten companies to bid on salvaging the Costa Concordia. The bids are due early next month and Costa has plans to award a contract by the end of March. Smit Salvage, Svitzer Salvage, Mammoet Salvage, Titan Salvage, Resolve Marine Group, T&T Bisso Savage, Donjon Marine, Tito Neri, Fukada Salvage & Marine and Nippon Salvage have been invited to tender.  Salvage is expected to take around ten months.  Is the process of choosing a salvor moving too slowly or to quickly?  One expert in the salvage industry is complaining that the process is unrealistically fast.

According to former International Salvage Union president, Klaas Reinigert, such a tight timetable “is absolutely ridiculous… If you built a simple house, a very routine business, it takes months for an architect to prepare the drawings. Even to lay a pipeline through a canal takes months of preparations,” he said. “Suddenly, totally out of the blue with no forward warning at all, a gigantic ship hits the rocks and becomes almost completely submerged, with a tremendous amount of unknowns plus the risk of the vessel sliding down to deeper water.”  Yet salvage companies are expected to present their offers within a few weeks, a timeframe that Mr Reinigert described as “almost criminal”.

Salvage expert slams ‘ridiculous’ bid deadlines to move Costa Concordia

In the mean while, the Costa Concordia has slipped 24 inches closer to deep water.  24 inches is not a great distance, but if the ship should slip off the ledge, it will sink in water over 230 feet deep, which would significantly increase the risk of a major oil spill and also make salvaging the ship much more difficult.  The removal of fuel oil from the ship continues to be delayed by weather. The last update from Smit, the salvor hired to remove the oil was from January 31:   We are continually monitoring the weather forecast however adverse weather conditions continue to impact our oil removal operations. We will remobilize our equipment alongside the Costa Concordia, complete the preparations on the forward fuel tanks and commence with the oil removal operation when conditions become favourable. We will keep you informed on developments through the website.