A giant container ship remained stuck on its side in Egypt’s Suez Canal by the fifth day on Saturday, as authorities prepared to make further attempts to free the ship and reopen an east-west waterway crucial to global maritime transport.
Ever Given’s owners say a gust of wind pushed him and his huge cargo of more than 20,000 containers to the side of the canal on Tuesday, trapping him between the sandy banks of the canal. The huge vessel was stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal, a few kilometers from its southern entrance.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, Ever Given’s technical manager, said an attempt to free him failed on Friday.
Samuel Mohsen / image alliance via Getty Images
Plans are underway to pump water from the ship’s internal spaces, and two more tugs are due to arrive on Sunday to join others who are already trying to move the huge ship, the agency said.
An official at the Suez Canal Authority said they plan to make at least two attempts on Saturday to free the ship when the tide goes out.
Maritime congestion grew to about 280 ships on Saturday outside the Suez Canal, according to channel service provider Leth Agencies. Some vessels began to change course and dozens of ships were still on their way to the waterway, according to data company Refinitiv.
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Shoei Kisen President Yukito Higaki said at a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Imabari, western Japan, that 10 tugs were deployed and workers were dredging the banks and the seabed near the bow of the ship to try and place it. it afloat again when the high tide starts to rise.
Shoei Kisen said in a statement on Saturday that the company is considering removing containers to make the ship lighter if the refotting efforts fail, but that it would be a difficult operation.
The White House said it had offered to help Egypt reopen the canal. “We have equipment and capacity that most countries do not and we are seeing what we can do and what help we can be,” President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday.
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, which is particularly important for the transportation of oil. The closure could affect oil and gas shipments from the Middle East to Europe.
It was not clear how long the blockade would last. Even after reopening the channel linking factories in Asia to consumers in Europe, waiting containers are likely to reach busy ports, forcing them to face additional delays before unloading.
Apparently predicting long delays, the owners of the stuck ship diverted a sister ship, Ever Greet, on a course around Africa, according to satellite data.
Others are also being led astray. The liquid natural gas carrier Pan Americas changed course in the middle of the Atlantic, now aiming south to bypass the southern tip of Africa, according to satellite data from MarineTraffic.com.
The Financial Times reported on Friday that a number of shipping groups had contacted the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet about maritime safety issues for ships that chose to sail south around Africa, which would place them in waters off the east coast of the continent that have a long history of piracy.
“Africa is at risk of piracy, especially in East Africa,” Zhao Qing-feng, of the Shanghai Shipowners’ Association in Shanghai, told FT, saying that the owners may need to hire extra security forces to board their ships. before making the long journey.
It is just one more factor that could cause a serious slowdown and a potential price increase for goods moving from Asia to Europe and the US, and yet another headache for a global supply chain system already affected by the global pandemic. coronavirus.
Egyptian authorities have banned media access to the site. The channel official said his boss, Lieutenant General Osama Rabei, would give a news conference on Saturday in the city of Suez, just a few kilometers from the ship’s location.