Italy’s civil-protection agency halted a search for 16 missing people in the submerged part of Carnival Corp. (CCL)’s Costa Concordia, whose owners are likely to declare a “total loss.”
Rescuers will keep searching for bodies in the part of the ship above water, the agency said in a statement on its website today. The ship is unlikely to return to use and insurers will probably “declare a total loss,” Pier Luigi Foschi, chairman of Costa Crociere, the Italian unit of Miami-based Carnival, said during a hearing in the Senate in Rome today.
Preliminary operations to prepare fuel removal are likely to remain suspended tomorrow as strong winds are forecast, the agency said. Royal Boskalis Westminster NV’s Smit Salvage unit and its Italian partner Neri SpA haven’t started pumping 500,000 gallons of fuel out, more than two weeks after the accident.
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The Costa Concordia hit rocks and capsized on Jan. 13 just hours after leaving port near Rome with 4200 passengers. Oil removal may take at least 28 days, Coast Guard Admiral Ilarione Dell’Anna said on Jan. 23. Italian search teams found a body on Jan. 28, raising the death toll to 17. Removal of the stricken ship from the area may take 10 months, civil-protection agency head Franco Gabrielli said on Jan 29.
Carnival said yesterday that the Concordia wreck will hurt 2012 net income by as much as $175 million, including insurance deductibles and loss of use. Foschi said today that his company is “very solid in terms of capital,” which it has built up over years without paying dividends.
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