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You're assuming that it's valuable to a scrapping company. Sometimes a grounded ship is more trouble than it's worth.

• wahern 6y ago
  The ship looked quite large. I would imagine scrappers in Turkey or Pakistan would have paid well, considering the price of steel. But you'd need investors to pay for transport and any Egyptian fees. And to secure investors you'd need to resolve property rights, at least tentatively, to the point the ship could be released, likely requiring some experienced maritime lawyer able to work quickly to avoid getting bogged down in litigation. I bet there would be significant profit in it, at least from the perspective of a handful of individuals, and especially if things could be arranged to make the sailor judgment proof--e.g. have his share of any proceeds go to family members--so free loaders (i.e. lazy ship owners, clients, and insurers) couldn't swoop in at the end to claim any proceeds. But it's not just a matter of profit; it's a matter of opportunity costs. All the parties most capable of pulling this off clearly felt there was more profit to be had by walking away and pursuing other opportunities. Surely people on HN understand this phenomenon: there are an infinite number of profitable opportunities out there, but some are better than others, and there's only a finite amount of time and capital.