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The huge container ship that has been stuck in the Suez Canal since Tuesday and is delaying and complicating international shipping is still there. A statement from the Japanese owners of Ever Given, which is the name of the ship, while Evergreen is the name of the company, has been denied that there were hopes of releasing it by Saturday, and there are no precise estimates yet on how long. it will take. Ongoing attempts are not working, and the people and machinery in action are increasing as we prepare for a much longer and more labor-intensive alternative plan. Meanwhile, the United States is the latest country to offer Egypt help to break out of the stalemate.
(EPA / MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES)
So far, the approach taken has been to flank Ever Given, which is 400 meters longer than the Empire State Building, with several trailers on each side, and to widen the banks of the canal with bulldozers. By pulling the boat forward and aft, the goal is to rotate it enough to free it. But it is a delicate operation and, in any case, so far it has not yielded real results. The work was later joined by dredge boats that are working to remove a few tens of thousands of cubic meters of sand from the seabed around Ever Given. This operation, combined with a lightening of the ship’s load, could cause it to float again, allowing it to navigate the canal again.
(EPA / SUEZ CHANNEL AUTHORITY)
Since Thursday, a team of Dutch experts has been working on it, which in the past has dealt with complex marine operations such as the recovery of the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk from the bottom of the Barents Sea. Peter Berdowski, director of the Dutch company, compared Ever Given’s situation to that of a beached whale.
At best, the attempt currently underway could free the ship between Sunday and Monday, but there seems to be little optimism given the poor results obtained so far. If things do not suddenly improve, the only alternative will be to continue digging the embankments and the seabed, proceeding at the same time with a more massive and laborious lightening operation: move part of the twenty thousand containers present on the ship to land, use cranes a few dozen meters high, and remove part of the fuel and water that is lodged in some spaces of the hull. Experts warn that it could take weeks and care must be taken not to throw the boat out of balance and risk breaking.
(EPA / SUEZ CHANNEL AUTHORITY)
There are 276 ships waiting to cross the channel, north, south and on the Great Bitter Lake, second the Leth Agencies agency that deals with the traffic on the canal. More than 8 billion euros in goods per day are blocked due to Ever Given, according to estimates. Dozens of ships that have to travel from Asia to Europe and vice versa are instead diverting their routes along the more than 5,000 kilometers that serve to circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope and, therefore, the entire African continent, which it may take up to ten more days. .
– Read also: How the Suez Canal is built
The commercial consequences of the blockade are difficult to calculate and will largely depend on the time it takes to free the ship. Shipping companies are used to adapting to the unexpected, but an excessive delay can cause problems, especially for shipments of spoiled products or for medical devices. There is also some concern about European car factories, whose supply chains are very narrow. Northern European ports are likely to get crowded, while the costs of shipping by sea will rise considerably if it is necessary to circumnavigate Africa for a time, requiring much more fuel, higher spending on a ship’s operating costs. container ship.
(Samuel Mohsen / dpa)
The Allianz insurer has estimated losses of between 5 and 8.5 billion euros per week for international trade, and these days shipping costs for oil have already almost doubled due to growing demand. A week-long lockdown will especially affect shipping costs for naphtha and other fuels from Europe to Asia, especially for smaller vessels, experts say. World oil prices have already risen 3 percent, but it is a low season for international demand for crude oil and liquefied natural gas, so the impact of the blockade is somewhat less severe.
(EPA / KHALED ELFIQI)
– Read also: The history of the Suez Canal
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