Ship 'partially refloated' but still stuck in Suez Canal
- by Emilio Sims
- in Money
- — Mar 30, 2021
The Suez Canal salvage teams intensified excavation and dredging on Sunday and were hoping a high tide would help them dislodge it. The company also said it had elected to reroute 15 vessels via the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa, a longer and potentially more hazardous journey.
The ship is now reportedly en route to the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south end of the canal, where it would undergo technical examination, according to canal authorities.
The resumption of shipping traffic through the Suez Canal, which remained stalled nearly a week, is likely to ease pressure on insurance companies, which feared a huge payout for stalled goods and containers, officials said.
The obstruction has created a massive traffic jam in the vital passage, holding up $9 billion each day in global trade and straining the process of getting products from factories and farms to distributors and stores.
Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed the ship in the same position, surrounded by a squadron of tugboats with its bow stuck in the canal's eastern bank.
About 15% of world shipping traffic transits the Suez Canal, which is an important source of foreign currency revenue for Egypt.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who had not publicly commented on the blockage, said Egypt had ended the crisis and assured resumption of trade through the canal.
The BBC, citing the Suez Canal Authority, reported that the ship has been corrected by 80% and freed from the shoreline. At least 367 ships, carrying everything from oil to cattle, are waiting to pass at both ends of the canal.
The Ever Given became jammed diagonally across a southern section of the canal in high winds almost a week ago, halting shipping traffic on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
"Egyptians have succeeded in ending the crisis", he wrote on Facebook. Tugboats pushed and pulled to budge the the behemoth from the shore, their work buoyed by high tide at dawn Monday that resulted in the vessel's partial refloating.
In the village of Amer, which overlooks the canal, residents cheered as the vessel moved along.
While the hit of the canal's US$10-billion-per-day closure will likely be small given that global merchandise trade amounts to US$18 trillion a year, the prospect of hundreds of ships being thrown off schedule will ensure cargo delays in the weeks if not months ahead. It wasn't clear whether the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship, hauling goods from Asia to Europe, would head to its original destination of Rotterdam or if it will need to enter another port for repairs.
The unprecedented shutdown has threatened to disrupt oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East and raised fears of extended delays, good shortages and rising costs for consumers.
