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The Suez Canal bottleneck is once again free for international shipments. After the successful rescue of the stranded container ship, the mega traffic jam at both ends of the canal should now be cleared as quickly as possible. However, the effects could be felt even more.
The “Ever Given” can continue again.
After days of blockade by the giant freighter “Ever Given”, which was placed across the sea, the Suez Canal is moving again. By Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. The first boats started their course early Monday night. According to Rabies, they are now working “around the clock” to clear the congestion of almost 370 ships waiting for roads on both sides of the canal. Rabie said the backwater should be cleaned within four days if possible. The one-day lockdown caused the channel to lose around $ 13 million to $ 14 million in revenue every day. The pressure to release the channel is correspondingly high.
The container ship “Ever Given” was fully floated again on Monday afternoon. According to the Boskalis rescue company, the helpers had dredged some 30,000 cubic meters of sand. The Dutch company had helped Egypt discover the transverse freighter.
After the salvage on Monday (March 29), the 400-meter-long ship moved for the first time alone in the canal. Mermaids accompanied the journey. Ten tugs had previously pulled “Ever Given” away from the canal bank from four directions. The high tide with a full moon on Monday night had been a bonus. Tracking service provider Vesselfinder listed “Ever Given” as “on the way.”
Suez Canal rescue and recovery teams attempted to free a Japanese shipowner’s ship, which ran aground on Tuesday (March 23), with tugs and excavators. Egypt’s President Abdelfatah al-Sisi had already ordered the partial unloading of containers to be prepared in case attempts to uncover them remain unsuccessful.
The “Ever Given” will be examined after it has been recovered from the Great Bitter Lake at the northern end of the Suez Canal. It was initially unclear when he could continue his trip to Rotterdam. Rabie said the investigation into the incident must first be fully completed.
With the resumption of shipping, the blockade did not last as long as was feared. Peter Berdowski, the head of Dutch specialist company Boskalis, had not ruled out last week that the discovery of the ship could take weeks.
The container ship “Ever Given” blocked the Suez Canal, which is a major route for freight traffic between Asia and Europe, for days.
Usually the ships travel in convoy through the canal. The “Ever Given” was the fifth ship in such a column that headed north. According to the Suez Canal operator, the freighter could no longer navigate due to high wind speeds and a sandstorm and ran aground. Then it spread and made it impossible to pass through the canal. Freighters in front of the “Ever Given” were not affected by the problems.
“Ever Given” is one of the largest container ships in the world. It is 400 meters long and can carry around 20,000 containers. The canal is 205 meters wide. The gigantic dimensions of the freighter made recovery difficult.
The container ship “Ever Given”, which sails under the Panamanian flag and is chartered by the Taiwanese company Evergreen, was en route from China to Rotterdam.
The accident occurred in the southern part of the Suez Canal. The waterway was partially widened in 2015 so that it can be used in both directions at the same time. However, this new section is located to the north of the accident site. Therefore, the entire channel was blocked.
The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and therefore offers the shortest sea route between Asia and Europe. According to the Suez Canal Authority, nearly 19,000 ships crossed the waterway in 2020, an average of 52 a day. The one-day blackout caused the channel to lose between $ 13 million and $ 14 million in revenue every day.
Approximately 12% of the volume of world trade transported by ship is handled through the canal, which opened in 1869. The share of world container traffic is even higher, at just under a third. The waterway connects Asia and the oil fields of the Middle East with Europe and North America (and vice versa).
The gigantic freighter blocks the important waterway.
A longer break in the Suez Canal would have meant that freighters had to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa to connect Asia and Europe. This means an extension of the transport time of up to two weeks.
Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, announced Monday morning that it had already diverted 15 cargo ships. As a result, the queue in the Suez Canal should not be extended. At the moment, it looks like it could take around six days to clear the backwater, if the canal is fully navigable again. Even if the channel opens as soon as possible, the impact on global supply chains could be felt for weeks or months, Maersk said.
The incident came at a bad time for global supply chains: Container traffic has been plagued by delays and higher shipping costs for months. The pandemic and increased demand for consumer goods, especially from Asia, are creating bottlenecks in global logistics. The Suez Canal accident will compound the problems.
According to the rating agency Moody’s, industrial companies, as well as automobile manufacturers and their suppliers that have committed to profitable just-in-time production that depends on a continuous supply of raw materials and intermediate products are likely to be particularly affected by the temporary difficulties.
The blockade of the waterway also affects the land route.
The Suez Canal is a major transportation route for crude oil, petroleum products, and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Consulting firm Wood Mackenzie estimates that the greatest impact will be in container shipping.
After the blocked container ship was discovered, oil prices fell significantly, assuming more oil will be available again.
As a result of the accident, oil prices fluctuated sharply from one side to the other. Before the blockade, the price of oil had to drop significantly because the economic outlook had deteriorated. The price movements of the last days show the level of hopes that the Suez Canal will open. However, in the time since the accident, the price of oil has moved little.
If the Suez Canal fails, two crude oil pipelines between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean can mitigate the impact. According to Wood Mackenzie, the biggest effect is likely to be a prolonged blockage in the transport of oil products from the Mediterranean to Asia.
