Suez Canal: – Pictures show chaos

A giant cargo ship of the Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen, which carries cargo between Asia and Europe, has docked in Egypt’s Suez Canal.

The ship, which weighs 220,000 tonnes and is 400 meters long, is stuck and creates big problems in one of the most important canals in the world.

New photos

Now satellite images show the chaos that has arisen.

The Suez Canal is the sea route that connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and is considered one of the most important canals in the world. By using the Suez Canal, cargo ships save for a trip across the entire African continent.

About 10 percent of world trade passes through the Suez Canal, and the shore-supported ship has led to more than 300 vessels queuing on both sides of the canal.

In the new satellite images, you can see the traffic in the area before and after the ship landed.

The new images clearly show how the canal is now full of vessels waiting to continue their route.

“Extremely difficult”

At the same time, intense work is being done to free the ship, and the work is described as “extremely difficult”.

Rescuers in the Suez Canal hope that high tide will unleash the giant ship “Ever Given”. On Sunday night an attempt was made to move the 400-meter-long container ship with 14 tugs.

Critical moment

The ship’s journey shouldn’t have been possible until 2030:

– Sunday will be very critical, has declared a pilot associated with the Egypt Canal Authority.

The background is that then the high tide period began.

A large number of tugboats work on the ship, as well as dredgers that extract sand and mud. Sources inform the Reuters news agency that the work was very complicated, and that the keel of the ship may be stuck in some rocks.

– We hope that the attempts to take off the ship on Sunday night will be successful. The situation and delays become more extensive the longer this lasts, CEO Harald Solberg of the Norwegian Shipowners Association tells Dagbladet.

As of Sunday night, there were 26 Norwegian-owned ships in the area and the Norwegian Shipowners Association has contact with several of them.

The tails grow

– We expect the number of Norwegian-owned ships in the queue to increase if the situation persists. Many ships have slowed down on their way to the Suez Canal and the queue is growing, says Harald Solberg.

Several salvage companies are participating in the work, including Dutch Smit Salvage.

Harald Solberg from the Norwegian Shipowners Association believes there will be delays in deliveries of goods to Norway if the situation is not resolved quickly enough.

– exposed

On Monday evening, a Norwegian shipping company claims that Egyptian authorities have concluded that more tugs are needed to free the ship, thus the attempt has been postponed.

– SCA has decided to postpone the next attempt to free the ship until there are a sufficient number of tugs on site. TUG ALP Guard has arrived. On Monday morning TUG Carlo Magno arrives. In light of the tide chart, the next expected attempt has been set for Monday evening, stated in a message from the Norwegian-based shipping company Leth Agencies in Twitter.

The postponement has not been confirmed by the Egyptian authorities.

Moved

The crews managed to move on the ship with shore support on Saturday. Ever Given moved 30 degrees, according to the head of the Canal Authority, Osama Rabie.

Some experts are more pessimistic and express concern about what happens if it is true that the ship has not been released. The next period of high tide is only in a couple of weeks, according to Plamen Natzkoff of the VesselsValue company.

Rabie said at the weekend that he still hopes to drop the ship without having to remove the cargo. Ever Green had around 20,000 containers on board when it landed, and the Egyptian president has ordered the Canal Authority to prepare for all possible alternatives.

Sailing Africa

Editor Richard Meade of the industry magazine Lloyd’s List refers to sources with knowledge of the salvage operation who believe it will be possible to move the ship in a day or two.

However, several shipping companies have apparently given up hope for a solution soon. Instead, they are working to redirect ships to the Cape of Good Hope so they can sail around Africa, according to NTB.

An increasing number of companies have chosen this solution, Lloyd’s List reports Sunday. The French company CMA-CGM claims that two of its ships will travel through Africa on their way to Asia.

The detour through Africa involves about two more weeks of travel and the burning of more than 800 tons of extra fuel for a large tanker.

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Hundreds of ships

Ever Given is one of the largest container ships in the world and is the size of a skyscraper that has been torn down.

On a typical day, around 50 ships pass through the Suez Canal. The goods they carry with them account for more than 10 percent of world trade on average. The canal is especially important for oil coming from the Middle East.

The German insurance company Allianz has estimated that the cost of blocking the canal is between NOK 50 and 90 billion per day.

Strong wind

UN with grim verdict

On Saturday, the head of the Canal Authority in Egypt said strong winds were not “the only reason” for Ever Given’s ground support, as was first claimed. The investigation is still ongoing, but it may have been a technical or human failure that caused the massive ship to get stuck, according to Rabie.

Bernard Schulte Shipmanagemet has technical responsibility for Ever Given. The company maintains that its initial investigations rule out that mechanical or motor failure was the cause of the ground connection.

Kilder: NTB, Reuters