Efforts continued yesterday to make a damaged Chinese ship light enough to get it into Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor for repairs while federal officials pored over what was described as a "more thorough" cargo manifest in hopes of determining what kind of munitions are aboard the ship.

Meanwhile, the anticipated arrival at the harbor of the Tong Cheng and the decision to send it there have upset businesses that will be displaced during the repairs. Delays caused by the work could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in shipping penalties, they said.

And the presence of unspecified munitions, while not creating outright fear, has definitely raised eyebrows among those who use the harbor.

"You don't know what's on it," said Jim Banigan, general manager for Schnitzer Steel Hawaii Corp., a scrap metal company that loads its cargo at the deep-draft harbor. "It could be rockets, it could be anything. But the worst place to put it is at Barbers Point. There are fuel lines under both Pier 5 and Pier 6."

State Department of Defense and Civil Defense officials, as well the Honolulu Fire Department, have not been told that the cargo poses a risk to the public.

Coast Guard Lt. Nikki Samuel said inspectors from the Coast Guard and Bureau of Customs and Border Protection have been able to look into the cargo holds of the Tong Cheng anchored off Sand Island but have not been able to examine the contents of the containers aboard the damaged ship.

"They got the manifest late (Wednesday) night and have been going through it to try to verify what's aboard," she said. "Indications are that there is a limited amount of 'munitions' on the ship."

Because the ship was not yet within a protected anchorage, safety concerns prevented inspectors from opening containers on the ship to check their contents.

The manifest lists a "small amount" of munitions aboard the ship but does not describe them in detail, Samuel said

The issue of what to do with the ship has become problematic after it was learned that the ship departed Busan, South Korea, with a load of cargo that Coast Guard and Customs officials have come to believe was headed for Cuba.

Chief Petty Officer Marsha Delaney, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard, said the Tong Cheng's hull was damaged Dec. 26 and that the ship first contacted the Coast Guard Jan. 13 for permission to enter Hawai'i waters to repair a 56-inch-long crack under the No. 2 hold.

She could not immediately say where the ship was when it was damaged or when it requested permission to enter Hawai'i waters.

The ship arrived on Monday and has been anchored off Sand Island since then.

Officials here reportedly have been discussing the situation with the U.S. State Department because the United States has a trade embargo with Cuba. The embargo prevents U.S. companies from trading directly with Cuba, and prevents ships under any flag from shipping cargo directly from a U.S. port to Cuba.

Joanne Moore, a State Department press officer attached to the agency's Washington, D.C., office, said yesterday that she had no information regarding the Tong Cheng situation.

Officials at the Chinese Consulate's offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., would not comment on the matter.

Hawai'i businesses that use the harbor could end up paying hefty penalties if cargo ships they have hired are delayed by the repair work to the Tong Cheng.

But one of those businesses — independent electricity producer AES Hawai'i Inc. — is also worried that its shipment of coal will not be unloaded before the company runs out of its reserve supply, said Matthew Riel, the power company's president and general manager. AES produces 20 percent of the power Hawaiian Electric Co. uses.

Riel said the company is waiting for a monthly shipment of coal, about 55,000 tons, which was due in today aboard the MV Joyous Society. The company has special coal-unloading machinery fixed at Pier 6. It typically takes seven to eight days to unload the coal ship.

"We are already digging into our storage pile of coal here at our site," Riel said. "We have used up our active pile."

No one has told Riel how long it could take to repair the Tong Cheng, he said.

"It does call into question the reliability of our continued operation of providing 20 percent of the island's power," he said.

Banigan, the general manager for Schnitzer Steel Hawaii, Corp., said the company is waiting to load 33,000 tons aboard the MV Glyfada tomorrow or Sunday at Pier 7. Banigan is worried that authorities will move the Tong Cheng to his pier when coal delivery arrives.

"The thing that bothers me is that it is a communist vessel, it has military equipment and munitions and they are displacing Hawai'i businesses," Banigan said. "Why did they have to disrupt us, move us around, create all this problem when they could have waited a week?"

Both companies estimated their individual costs associated with the repairs would hit six figures.

The state Department of Transportation, which oversees the harbor, said federal homeland security officials chose to move the Tong Cheng to the deep-draft harbor.

"It is not as congested as Honolulu Harbor," said transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa. "With Honolulu Harbor, you have cruise ships and everything else going in and out."

Ishikawa said the owners of the Tong Cheng are responsible for setting up a claims process for affected businesses. He said the state had no choice but to bring the ship into port.

"We have to bring in the ship for repairs or we might have environmental issues on our hands," he said. "The repairs have to be done."

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com and Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.