“Bad fuel” causes engine issues on MSC Ariane

THE CONTAINERSHIP MSC Ariane stopped mid-voyage in the North Pacific after an engine issue that MSC said stemmed from “bad quality fuel”.

The incident occurred on 2 April when the vessel was sailing from Xiamen to Los Angeles on MSC’s Pearl service, which is also Maersk’s TP6 service.

Maersk said a tugboat with spare parts had reached the vessel and was towing it to Wakayama, Japan, where it is expected to arrive on Wednesday.

The Panama-flagged MSC Ariane (IMO 9484443) has a capacity to carry 13,050 TEU and is 366 metres long.

There are no reports of containers lost from the vessel. This is in contrast to the power-loss incident in which Maersk Eindhoven lost about 260 containers overboard after losing power in heavy weather.