Facts and accidents
On 1 November 2013, the Port of Le Havre welcomed Glovis' maiden port stay in France. MV Glovis Condor called at the port on her way from Gothenburg to Southampton to load and unload cargo, mainly used trucks and military vehicles destined for the Middle East.[6]
On 23 November 2014, Glovis announced the acquisition of the Polish logistics specialist distributor Adampol.[7] The company owns 611 car carrier trailer trucks, manage 600 loads per day, and has a total staff of over 1,300 employees. The main business is storage, pick up from ports and distribution of new cars within Eastern Europe and Russia, with an average of 400,000 cars delivered per year to the final dealers, for brands such as BMW, General Motors, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
On 16 June 2016, the company reaffirmed their intention to not support the Federal government of the United States demands to employ or charter US-flagged vessels. The American Government had suggested on a number of occasions the possibility of reflagging or hiring vessels registered in US, to carry military equipment on Glovis' ballast leg from US to South Korea. However, due to the costs involved, South Korea's Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries politely declined.[8]
On 27 December 2016, MV Glovis Corona (built in 1996, and formerly known as MV Asian Grace) faced a serious near miss, due to severe weather conditions in the European North Sea. The vessel listed approximately 15 degrees, caused by cargo movements in the holds, when cars and high and heavy cargo broke their lashings, dangerously moving within the decks.[9] The accident took place when Glovis Corona was sailing from Hamburg to Gothenborg, having to suddenly stop close to Bremerhaven anchorage. On 30 December, a berth was granted at Bremerhaven, to discharge 1,800 cars, and to further ballast to even the keel.[10] Owing to the situation, the export voyage had to be cancelled and the cargo bookings rolled to another sailing.
On 15 February 2018, MV Glovis Spring ran aground within Paracel Islands waters.[11] The vessel was sailing from Singapore to Hong Kong, with over 3,400 brand new European manufactured cars on board, when it ended up in shallow waters, possibly related to the shifting of landfill materials arranged by the Chinese authorities, and aggravated by extreme low tide sea conditions. Two Chinese companies immediately proposed to assist with the maritime salvage promptly sending divers and tugboats.[12] The operation was finally awarded to a joint venture formed by Messrs Ardent and Guangzhou Salvage. MV Glovis Spring was successfully refloated and made free 4 days after the grounding.[13]
On Monday, 21 May 2018, MV Auto Banner, part of the Glovis tonnage, caught fire while alongside Incheon port, due to overheating of one of the vehicles just loaded on board, destined for Libya. The crew of 28 had to be quickly evacuated from on board, while fire brigades proceeded to successfully extinguish the fire from sea, shore and air. MV Auto Banner was built in 1988 and used to be part of the STX Pan Ocean fleet. The ship was certified in good condition, according to a port state inspection performed in January 2018 in Portland, US.[14]
On 7 September 2019, Greenpeace activists temporary blocked the discharging of Korean SUV vehicles into Bremerhaven port, disrupting for several hours the operations of MV Glovis Sky.[15]
On 8 September 2019, MV Golden Ray, built in 2017 and flying the Marshall Islands flag, capsized within the Port of Brunswick's harbour, shortly after unberthing and proceeding towards Port of Baltimore.[16] Four of the 23 crew members were initially missing, but all were eventually rescued and appeared to be in good medical condition.[17] The incident was mentioned as related to a sudden loss of stability possibly due to cargo stowage and incorrect water ballasting.[18] A Hyundai Glovis executive told the news media that "there was some kind of an internal fire that could not be controlled and then it capsized".[19] The National Transportation Safety Board agreed to assist in the investigation of the cause of the incident with two investigators assigned to the case.[20]
On 3 November 2019, MV Glovis Captain arrived in Southampton after facing extreme weather conditions in the English Channel. The abnormal rolling caused the breaking of several cargo lashings, causing damage to cargo on her main deck. Brand-new trucks and Porsche cars destined for China, were damaged or nearly completely destroyed after being crushed against the ship’s bulkhead. The bulkhead itself suffered a hole that needed urgent repair before the vessel could restart her passage towards Asia. The cargo had to be unloaded by forklift and mafi roll trailers, being in non-driveable condition. The port stay had to be increased to over 3 days, to perform the necessary inspections, and repairs to the ship.
On 28 June 2020, the Glovis operated MV Grand Venus after completing the discharge of Tesla cars loaded in US at Zeebrugge port,[21] collided with a LNG tanker while both adrift in proximity of Ostend and Zeebrugge outer anchorage area, waiting for assignment. Although the damages occurred were minor, the vessel required repair at Vlissingen dock[22] before starting her consequent voyage towards Asia in July.[23]
On 7 March 2022, the Government Pension Fund of Norway, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, decided to place the company under observation "due to unacceptable risk that the company contributes to gross or systematic human rights violations".[24][25]
