Suez Canal Shipment Backlog Ends Days After Giant Ship Released

CAIRO: All ships stranded by the giant container ship Ever Given grounding in the Suez Canal in March had passed through the canal on Saturday (April 3), ending the backlog accumulated during the blockade, the canal authority said. .

The last 61 ships, of the 422 that were queuing when the ship was evicted on Monday, passed through the vital commercial artery on Saturday, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said.

READ: Investigator Boards Ship at Start of Suez Canal Blockade Investigation

International supply chains were thrown into disarray when the 400-meter-long Ever Given ran aground in the canal on March 23, and it took specialized rescue teams nearly a week to free it after extensive dredging and repeated hauling operations.

In all, 85 ships were due to pass through the canal on Saturday, including 24 ships that arrived after Ever Given was evicted, the SCA said.

An SCA investigation began Wednesday into what caused the ship to run aground in the canal and block the waterway for six days, the channel’s authority chairman Osama Rabie told private MBC Masr television on Friday. night.

“The investigation is going well and will take two more days, then we will release the results,” he added.

Rabie has acknowledged that the blockade, which began when the ship went off course in a sandstorm, jeopardized Egypt’s international shipping and a broader reputation.

READ: Comment: The Suez Canal Incident Reveals Why World Trade Is Highly Dependent On Shipping With Few Alternatives

Egyptian authorities have presented the release of the mega-ship as a vindication of the country’s engineering and salvage capabilities.

“Ninety-nine percent” of the personnel who worked to refloat the giant ship were Egyptian, according to Rabie.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has promised investments to ensure the episode does not repeat itself, and the SCA has called for the need for new tugboats and dredgers.

Maritime data company Lloyd’s List said the blockade had retained an estimated $ 9.6 billion worth of cargo each day between Asia and Europe.

The canal is economically vital for Egypt, which lost between $ 12 million and $ 15 million in revenue for each day the waterway was closed, according to the canal authority.

Nearly 19,000 ships sailed the canal in 2020, averaging just over 50 a day, he says.

But the president and the port authority have ruled out any further widening of the southern stretch of the canal where the ship got stuck diagonally.

Sisi oversaw an expansion of a northern section, which included the widening of an existing section and the introduction of a 35-kilometer parallel waterway, to much fanfare in 2014-15.

But that was accomplished at a cost of more than $ 8 billion, without significantly increasing the channel’s revenue.

The Suez Canal earned Egypt just over $ 5.7 billion in 2019/20, little change from the previous year and similar to the $ 5.3 billion in revenue earned in 2014.

“Economically … (further expansion) would not be helpful,” Sisi said this week.

The costly lockdown is likely to lead to litigation, analysts say, with the ship’s Japanese owners, Taiwanese operators and Egypt itself under the microscope.