Cairo – maritime traffic through the Suez Canal remained blocked on Thursday, for the third consecutive day, with dozens of ships trapped at the northern and southern entrances of the shortest route between Asia and Africa. One of the largest cargo ships in the world turned sideways and was stuck in the narrow channel on Tuesday, and one of the teams in charge of dislodging the ship said it could take weeks for the cargo to move again.
Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority (SCA) announced that navigation through the channel has been “temporarily suspended” until the Panamanian-flagged container ship MV Ever Given can be floated again.
Suez Canal Authority
On Wednesday, SCA allowed 13 ships to enter the northern end of the channel from the Mediterranean, hoping that Ever Given would be released quickly and the other cargo ships could continue their voyages. But these ships only reached a lake in the middle of the channel and may not be going anywhere quickly.
Egypt is using eight large tugs and excavation equipment on the banks of the canal, but so far all efforts to remake the nearly quarter-mile 247,000-ton container ship have failed.
Suez Canal Authority
SCA said Thursday that an “alternative scenario” was being adopted, with vessels entering the channel from the north on Wednesday “anchoring in the Bitter Lakes waiting area, until navigation can be resumed fully. . “
Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp, which operates the ship on a lease on behalf of the Japanese company that owns it, hired Dutch company Smit Salvage and Japanese company Nippon Salvage to work with the ship’s captain and the Suez Canal Authority to find out how to float again.
Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis that owns Smit Salvage, said on Thursday that it was too early to determine how long the job could take.
“We cannot exclude that it can take weeks, depending on the situation,” Berdowski told Dutch television program “Nieuwsuur”, according to Reuters. Navigation sources told Reuters that if delays continue, ships may begin to redirect around the southern tip of Africa, which adds thousands of miles and about a week to the voyage.
Suez Canal Authority
The Japanese company that owns Ever Given, Shoei Kisen, told the Associated Press that it was cooperating with local authorities, but “the operation is extremely difficult”.
“We are very sorry to cause tremendous concern to ships that are traveling or scheduled to travel on the Suez Canal, and all related people,” said the company.
Up to 30% of worldwide container freight typically passes through the Suez Canal every day – a journey that takes about six hours – making up about 12% of the total goods traded globally, according to Reuters.
The news agency quoted industry consultancy Kpler as saying that while the channel only facilitates the transit of about 4.4% of the world’s total flow of oil products, a prolonged outage could impact supplies from Asia and Europe. .
Meanwhile, the incident – and in particular the fact that a single ship, although very large, disrupted global trade and a photo of the ship’s hull making a small excavator sent to try to dislodge it – inspired a lot of memes in the social media . CBS ‘own “salty” Stephen Colbert even put on a captain’s hat to dissect the maritime disaster at his show on Wednesday night.
As the fun continues online, stress levels will undoubtedly continue to rise both for the ship’s owners, who have to pay the bill for the rescue operation, and for the Egyptian channel authority, which was already suffering from a drop in revenue due to to the COVID pandemic.