SUEZ, Egypt (AP) – Two additional tugboats accelerated on Sunday to Egypt’s Suez Canal to assist in efforts to free a skyscraper-sized container ship stuck for days on the crucial waterway, even with the main shippers each more and more diverting their boats for fear that the ship may take even more to release.
The Ever Given massif, a Japanese ship carrying the Panama flag that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, was trapped on Tuesday in a single-lane stretch of the canal. Since then, authorities have been unable to remove the ship and traffic on the canal – valued at more than $ 9 billion a day – has been disrupted, further disrupting a global shipping network already affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, called to help the tugboats that were already there, arrived in the Red Sea near the city of Suez early Sunday, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed. The tugs will push the 400-meter-long Ever Give, while the dredgers continue to suck sand under the ship and port-hardened mud, said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, who manages Ever Given.
Workers planned to make two attempts on Sunday to free the ship, coinciding with high tide, said a senior pilot of the canal authority.
“Sunday is very critical,” said the pilot. “This will determine the next step, which most likely involves at least partial unloading of the vessel.”
Removing containers from the ship would probably add even more days to the canal’s closure, something that authorities have been desperately trying to avoid. It would also require a crane and other equipment that has not yet arrived.
The pilot spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to inform journalists.
On Saturday, the head of the Suez Canal Authority told reporters that the strong winds “were not the only cause” for Ever Given’s stranding, appearing to resist conflicting assessments by others. Lieutenant-General Osama Rabei said an investigation is underway, but does not rule out human or technical error.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement says his “initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as the cause of the stranding.” However, at least one initial report suggested that a “blackout” hit the huge ship that was carrying around 20,000 containers at the time of the incident.
Rabei said he remains hopeful that dredging can free the ship without having to resort to the removal of its cargo, but added that “we are in a difficult situation, it is a serious incident”.
Asked when they expected to release the ship and reopen the canal, he said, “I can’t say it because I don’t know.”
Speaking on Sunday to Egyptian pro-government television channel Extra News, Rabei said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi had ordered the channel’s authority to prepare for all options, including the removal of containers from the ship. He said the authorities were in negotiations with the United States on this possibility, without going into details.
Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns the ship, said it is considering removing the containers if other reflux efforts fail.
Ever Given is stuck about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) north of the entrance to the Red Sea channel, near the city of Suez.
A prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipping chain. About 19,000 ships passed through the canal last year, according to official data. About 10% of world trade flows through the channel. The closure could affect oil and gas shipments from the Middle East to Europe. Syria has already started to ration the fuel distribution in the war-torn country amid concerns about delays in shipments arriving in the midst of the blockade.
By early Sunday, more than 320 ships were waiting to travel across Suez, either to the Mediterranean or the Red Sea, according to channel services company Leth Agencies. Dozens of others still listed their destination as the channel, although porters appear to be increasingly avoiding the passage.
The largest shipping company in the world, the Danish AP Moller-Maersk, warned its customers that it would take three to six days to clean up the accumulation of ships in the canal. The company and its partners already have 22 ships waiting there.
“The current number (of) vessels redirected from Maersk and partners is 14 and is expected to increase as we evaluate rescue efforts along with the capacity of the network and the fuel on our ships currently en route to Suez,” said the transporter.
Mediterranean Shipping Co., the second largest in the world, said it had already redirected at least 11 ships around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to avoid the channel. He returned two other ships and said he expected “some missed trips as a result of this incident”.
“MSC expects this incident to have a very significant impact on the movement of goods in containers, disrupting supply chains in addition to the existing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre and Malak Harb in Dubai contributed to this report.