Cargo ship is on move but Suez jam remains
SALVAGE teams yesterday set free a colossal container ship that has halted global trade through the Suez Canal in Egypt, starting an end to a crisis that for nearly a week has clogged one of the world’s most vital maritime arteries.
Helped by the peak of high tide, a flotilla of tugboats managed to wrench the bulbous bow of the skyscraper-sized Ever Given from the canal’s sandy east bank, where it had been lodged since last Tuesday.
After hauling the fully laden 220,000-ton vessel over the canal bank, the salvage team was pulling the vessel toward the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south end of the canal, where the ship will undergo technical inspection, canal authorities said.
Video footage released by the Suez Canal Authority showed the Ever Given being escorted by the tugboats that helped to free it, each sounding off their horns in jubilation after nearly a week of chaos.
Peter Berdowski, chief executive of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, said: “We pulled it off! I am excited to announce that our team of experts, working in close collaboration with the Suez Canal Authority, successfully refloated the Ever Given... thereby making free passage through the Suez Canal possible again.”
The obstruction has created a massive traffic jam in the vital waterway, holding up £6.5 billion each day in global trade and straining supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.
Traffic was set to resume in both directions through the canal last night, according to local authorities.
At least 367 vessels, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle, have piled up on either end of the canal, waiting to pass. Financial markets data firm Refinitiv estimated it could take more than ten days to clear the backlog of ships.
As a consequence of the blockage, dozens of vessels have opted for the alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip, a 3,100-mile detour that adds some two weeks to journeys and costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.
The freeing of the vessel came after dredgers cleared sand and mud from the vessel’s bow and ten tugboats pushed and pulled the vessel for five days, managing to partially refloat it at dawn yesterday. The salvage operation successfully relied on tugs and dredgers alone, allowing authorities to avoid the far more complex and lengthy task of lightening the vessel by offloading its 20,000 containers. It was not clear whether the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged, Japaneseowned ship hauling goods from Asia to Europe, would continue to its original destination of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, or if it would need to enter another port for repairs.
The unprecedented shutdown had threatened to disrupt oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East and raised fears of extended delays, goods shortages and rising costs for consumers.
The canal carries over 10% of global trade, including 7% of the world’s oil. Over 19,000 ships passed through last year, according to canal authorities. Millions of barrels of oil and liquefied natural gas flow through the artery from the Persian Gulf to Europe and North America. Goods made in China bound for Europe must go through the canal, or take the detour around Africa.