CAIRO – A huge container ship was trapped as it crossed the Suez Canal on Tuesday night, blocking traffic through one of the most important navigation arteries in the world and threatening to add yet another burden to a global shipping industry already hit by coronavirus pandemic.
The ship, which was heading from China to the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, ran aground amid low visibility and strong winds from a sandstorm that hit much of northern Egypt this week, according to George Safwat, a spokesman for the voice of the authority that oversees the channel. The storm caused an “inability to steer the ship,” he said in a statement.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 100 ships were attached to each end of the channel, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and carries about 10% of the world’s maritime traffic.
Dozens of tugboats rushed to try to free him while crews on land brought heavy equipment to dig the ground where he was trapped.
Lieutenant-General Osama Rabie, head of the canal authority, said the authority was reopening an older section of the canal to allow ships to pass through the waterway.
Almost all ships traveling from Asia to Europe pass through the 120-mile channel. The Suez is also a corridor for some ships carrying cargo from Asia to the east coast of the United States, as well as a route from North Africa to the rest of the world. Only the Panama Canal becomes so large in the passage of goods around the globe.
“The Suez Canal will spare no effort to restore navigation and serve the global trade movement,” said General Rabie in a statement, adding that the rescue units and eight tugs were still trying to retrieve the stuck ship on Wednesday morning. .
If the Egyptian authorities manage to free the vessel from the bottom of the channel and move it to the side of the waterway in two or three days, the episode will be a minor inconvenience for the industry. Transport companies often include extra days in their schedules to make up for delays on the route.
But if the extraction of the ship proves to be more complex, leaving Suez blocked for a longer time, this could pose a substantial risk for an industry that is already overloaded. Global maritime trade suffered a shakeout last year because of the pandemic, pushing Egypt’s channel revenue down 3% to $ 5.61 billion in 2020.
“If this is going to be an indirect delay, then you will see the stacking and grouping of ships on your arrival in Europe as well,” said Akhil Nair, vice president of global carrier management at SEKO Logistics in Hong Kong. “It’s just another factor that we didn’t need.”
Channel photos showed the container-laden ship – Ever Given, which is almost a quarter of a mile long – sitting sideways across the channel at an angle such that the name of the company that operates it, Evergreen, is clearly readable from the ship behind him. Its bow seemed to be stuck on the rocky eastern bank of the canal.
“The ship in front of us ran aground when crossing the channel and is now stuck on its side,” posted an Instagram user named @ fallenhearts17 on Tuesday night. “It looks like we can stay here for a while …”
The Suez Canal is a key artery for oil flows from the Persian Gulf region to Europe and North America. Approximately 5% of crude oil traded globally and 10% of refined petroleum products passed through the channel before the pandemic, estimated David Fyfe, chief economist at Argus Media, a market research firm.
After the channel was blocked, there was a 2.85% jump in the price of Brent oil, the international benchmark, on Wednesday, to $ 62.52 a barrel.
But Fyfe said that as demand for oil remained relatively weak in the midst of the pandemic, a short-term outage is unlikely to have a lasting impact on the market.
“I don’t think it will fundamentally change the sentiment of the market,” he said. “A lot will depend on how quickly they are able to clean the ship.”
Vivian yee reported from Cairo, and Peter S. Goodman from London. Nada Rashwan contributed reporting from Cairo, Stanley Reed from London and Alexandra Stevenson Hong Kong.