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A giant container ship remained stuck sideways in Egypt’s Suez Canal for the fifth day as authorities made fresh attempts to free the ship and reopen a waterway whose blockade is disrupting global transport and trade.
Meanwhile, the head of the Suez Canal Authority said strong winds “were not the only cause” of Ever Given’s grounding on Tuesday, appearing to reject conflicting assessments offered by others. Lieutenant General Osama Rabei told a news conference on Saturday that an investigation was underway, but did not rule out human or technical error.
The huge Ever Given, a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, got stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal, about four miles north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez.
Rabei said he could not predict when the ship would be dislodged. A Dutch salvage company is trying to refloat the ship with tugs and dredgers, taking advantage of the high tides.
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Rabei said he was hopeful that the dredging could free the ship without resorting to removing its cargo, but added that “ we are in a difficult situation, it is a bad incident. ”
When asked when they expected to release the vessel and reopen the canal, he said: “I can’t say because I don’t know.”
Uncredited / AP
This satellite image from Maxar Technologies shows the MV Ever Given freighter trapped in the Suez Canal near Suez, Egypt.
Shoei Kisen, the company that owns the ship, said it was considering removing the containers if other refloating efforts failed.
Two attempts to free the ship failed on Saturday, according to Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the ship’s management company and a canal service provider, Leth Agencies, despite hopes that a high tide could propel the ship.
Bernhard Schulte had previously said that “significant progress” was made at the stern of the ship, where her rudder was freed of sediment.
He said that about a dozen tugs were working Saturday (local time) in conjunction with dredging operations that were removing sand and mud from around the left side of the ship’s bow.
Some 9,000 tonnes of ballast water had already been removed from the ship, the canal president said.
Since the blockade began, a maritime traffic jam had increased to more than 320 vessels waiting at both ends of the Suez Canal and at the Great Bitter Lake in the middle of the waterway.
Peter Berdowski, chief executive of Boskalis, the salvage company hired to extract Ever Given, said on Friday the company expected to release the container ship in a few days using a combination of heavy tugs, dredging and high tides.
 © Maxar Technologies / AP
Another view of the stranded ship.
He told the Dutch news program Nieuwsuur on Friday night that the front of the boat is stuck in sandy clay, but the rear “has not been completely pushed into the clay and that is positive because you can use the rear to free it. . ”
“The combination of the (tugs) that we will have there, more dredged ground and high tide, we hope it will be enough to release the ship somewhere early next week,” he said.
If that doesn’t work, the company will remove hundreds of containers from the front of the ship to lighten it, effectively lifting the ship so it is easier to release, Berdowski said.
A crane that can lift the containers off the ship was already on the way, he said. Bernhard Schulte also confirmed that a Dutch and Italian tug was scheduled to arrive in Egypt on Sunday.
Mohamed Elshahed / AP
The United States has offered to help free the stranded ship.
Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly called the ship’s situation “a very extraordinary incident” in his first public comments on the blockade.
The Suez Canal Authority organized the first media trip to the site where the ship got stuck on Saturday. From a distance, a flotilla of tugs and other rescue equipment looked miniscule compared to the ship, a reminder of the scale of effort required to reopen the canal.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement said on Friday that its initial investigation showed the vessel ran aground due to high winds and ruled out a mechanical or engine failure. However, Rabei appeared to reject that assessment on Saturday, saying all possibilities were being investigated, including human and technical errors.
Mohamed Elshahed / AP
The ship is expected to be able to be released in the next few days, but it is far from safe.
A prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipping chain. Some 19,000 vessels passed through the canal last year, according to official figures. About 10 percent of world trade flows through the canal. The shutdown could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East.
Some vessels began to change course and dozens of vessels were still en route to the waterway, according to data firm Refinitiv.
It was not clear how long the blockade would last. Even after reopening the channel linking factories in Asia to consumers in Europe, the containers on hold are likely to arrive in busy ports, forcing them to face additional delays before unloading.
A prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipping chain. Some 19,000 vessels passed through the canal last year, according to official figures.
