CAIRO – Owners of a large shipping vessel that was closing the Suez Canal on Thursday said it had a “real problem” with upgrading it as Egypt closed one of the busiest shipping routes in the world.
Rescue experts warned the shutdown could take days or even weeks, forcing businesses to revert to cargo ships around southern Africa in a blow to global supply networks.
On the third day of the crisis, the global shipping giant Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd of Germany both said they were looking to go around Africa.
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The Suez significantly shortens travel between Asia and Europe. The Singapore-Rotterdam route, for example, is 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) and up to two weeks shorter via the waterway than going around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.
This photo, released by the Suez Canal Authority on March 25, 2021, shows a backup trying to take off the back of the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship that is surrounded across the Suez Canal and stopping traffic in the vital waterway. (Suez Canal Authority via AP)
The Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said it was doing all it could to restore the MV Ever Given, a 400-meter (1,300-foot) long toe vessel with 200,000 toes that went off its course and landed in a sandstorm Tuesday.
Towboats, scrapers and heavy earthmoving equipment were used but so far the vessel has not sunk.
“It’s a real heavy whale on the beach, so to speak,” said Peter Berdowski, head of Dutch company Smit Salvage who previously worked on the Italian submarine Costa Concordia and the submarine. Russian nuclear Kursk.
The rescue company was deploying a team to the site Thursday to assess what it would take to dislodge the Panama-flagged ship, said Berdowski, CEO of its main Boskalis company.
“We’re looking at the amount of oil, the amount of water – these are complex calculations,” he told Nieuwsuur ‘s Dutch TV news program.
“I don’t want to profit, but it will take days or weeks.”
‘The big worry’
Satellite images released by Planet Labs Inc show the so-called “megaship,” which is longer than four football fields, cut horizontally across the entire canal.
With ships waiting both in the Mediterranean and in the Red Sea and in the canal, the SCA announced that they were “temporarily suspending navigation on the route” -water.
Japanese ship rental company Shoei Kisen Kaisha, which owns the ship, said it was “in serious trouble” trying to renovate.
“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to vessels in the Suez Canal and to those planning to cross the canal,” he said in a statement.
The MarineTraffic map showed large assemblages of ships circulating and waiting in both the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south.
Ships will be anchored in Lake Timsah, Ismailia, halfway through Egypt’s Suez Canal on March 25, 2021. (Associated Press / Sam Magdy)
Oil prices jumped nearly six percent Wednesday in response to the Suez Canal crash, before falling again Thursday.
“What one vessel is capable of doing to the global oil market is amazing,” said Rystad Energy analyst Bjornar Tonhaugen.
“The sticky vessel in the Suez Canal created the visual definition of supply route bottles, effectively disrupting one of the busiest routes in the world for all goods.”
“We’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Ranjith Raja, a Middle East oil and shipping researcher at financial data company Refinitiv.
“The congestion is likely to take several days or weeks to resolve as it will affect other convoys.”
Broker Braemar has warned that if thatched boats cannot move the large vessel, some of their cargo may need to be removed with a mast galley to retrieve it.
“This can take days, maybe weeks,” he said.
‘Emergency’ route
The ship’s managers, Singapore-based Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, said the 25 crews on board were not injured and the rear and cargo were not damaged.
Historic sections of the canal were reopened Wednesday to try to reduce congestion.
The Suez is an “absolutely critical route”, said Camille Egloff, a maritime transport expert at Boston Consulting Group.
Nearly 19,000 boats passed through the canal last year carrying more than a billion tons of cargo, according to the SCA.
Egypt earned $ 5.61 billion in revenue.
This photo released by the Suez Canal Authority on March 25, 2021 shows Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority, investigates the situation with the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, after crossing the Suez Canal and stopping traffic in the vital waterway. (Suez Canal Authority via AP)
Canal traffic has been disrupted several times in the past, especially during the Arab-Israeli wars in the second half of the 20th century.
It was closed for six months after Egypt nationalized the canal operating company in 1956, prompting a massive offensive by Britain, France and Israel.
During the Six Day War of 1967, Egypt stopped it to block the canal with Israel.
Recently, in 2018, the canal was temporarily closed after a Greek superstar carrier failed an engine, involving a five-vessel crash.
