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The stranded container ship blocking the Suez Canal for nearly a week has been released and is on the move, finally allowing maritime traffic to resume on one of the world’s most important waterways.
Ships move through the canal again after the giant ship Ever Given, which had stalled diagonally in a southern section, was raised.
Aided by a high tide, a flotilla of tugs today managed to tear off the bow of the ship. the channelsandbar in Egypt.
It had been firmly lodged there since strong winds last Tuesday, stopping traffic on the shortest sea route between Europe and Asia.
The container ship Ever Given has been refloated. Photo: Suez Canal Authority / Reuters
The ship had been trapped in the Suez Canal for almost a week. Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies
The 400 m (1,312 ft) long Ever Given, carrying 20,000 containers, is now being dragged by the salvage team to the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water midway between the north and south end of the canal, where the boat will have a complete technical inspection.
“He is free,” said an official involved in the operation.
Live footage on a local television station showed the 224,000-ton ship surrounded by tugs moving slowly in the center of the channel, reportedly at a speed of 1.5 knots.
Evergreen Line, which rents the boat, said the inspection result will determine whether it can resume its scheduled service.
He added that after the inspection, decisions will be made on the arrangements for the cargo on board.
The company that manages the vessel, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, said: “There have been no reports of contamination or damage to the cargo and initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding.”
Efforts to get the ship moving again appeared to have been frustrated after the strong winds. swung it back across the canal after its partial refloating early Monday.
Intense push and pull efforts had been made with 11 tugs and two powerful sea tugs used, and some 30,000 cubic meters of sand were dredged, to a depth of 18 m (59 ft).
This image shows that Ever Given has straightened out and is no longer diagonally across the channel. Pic: Vesselfinder.com
Osama Rabei, the head of the Suez Canal Authority, confirmed that the skyscraper-sized ship had responded successfully to “push and pull maneuvers.”
He said it could take between two and a half to three days to clear the backlog on one of the world’s most important maritime commercial arteries.
At least 369 vessels are waiting to transit the canal, including dozens of container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers and liquefied natural gas (LNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) ships.
Image: Planet Labs Inc / AP
The price of oil fell when news of the events emerged in the channel, and the price of Brent crude fell 2% to just over $ 63 (£ 46) a barrel.
It was feared that the Japanese-owned ship, flying the Panama flag, had been stuck for weeks.
After Ever Given got bogged down six days ago, the resulting disruption to the vital waterway kept £ 6.5 billion in global trade each day.
Hundreds of other boats he had been trapped in the canal waiting to pass, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle.
More than two dozen ships opted for the alternate route between Asia and Europe around the Cape of Good Hope, adding around fifteen days to trips and threatening delivery delays.
Generally, about 15% of the world’s maritime traffic transits the Suez Canal, which is a major source of foreign exchange earnings for Egypt.
