SUEZ, Egypt (AP) – Two additional tugs moved to the Egyptian Suez Canal on Sunday to aid efforts to release a skyscraper-sized container ship anchored for days across the crucial waterway, even as major shippers divert more and more of their ships for fear that they might catch the ships even longer to release.
The massive Ever Give, a Japanese-owned Panama-flagged ship carrying goods between Asia and Europe, was trapped Tuesday on a one-lane stretch of the canal. Since then, authorities have been unable to withdraw the ship and traffic through the canal (valued at more than $ 9 billion a day) has been halted, further affecting an already tense global shipping network. coronavirus pandemic.
The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and Italian-flagged Charlemagne, called to help the tugs that were already there, arrived early Sunday in the Red Sea, near the city of Suez, according to satellite data from MarineTraffic.com. Tugboats will propel the 400-meter-long (quarter-mile-long) run while dredgers continue to suck sand under the boat and covered mud to the side of the harbor, said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which manages Ever Done.
Workers were scheduled to make two attempts Sunday to free the ship coinciding with the high tides, a senior canal authority pilot said.
“Sunday is very critical,” the pilot said. “It will determine the next step, which is very likely to involve at least partial unloading of the ship.”
Removing containers from the ship would probably add even more days to the canal closure, which authorities have desperately tried to avoid. It would also require a crane and other equipment that has not yet arrived.
The pilot spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as he was not allowed to report to reporters.
On Saturday, the head of the Suez Canal Authority told reporters that strong winds “were not the only cause” of the Ever done jam, which appeared to backfire on conflicting assessments offered by others. Lieutenant General Osama Rabei said the investigation was ongoing, but did not rule out any human or technical error.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement argues that his “initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of grounding.” However, at least one initial report suggested that a “shutdown” affected the ship carrying about 20,000 containers at the time of the incident.
Rabei said he was still hoping the dredging could free the ship without having to resort to removing the cargo, but added that “we are in a difficult situation, it is a bad incident.”
Asked about when they expected to release the ship and reopen the canal, he said, “I can’t say because I don’t know.”
Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns the ship, said it was considering removing containers if other refloating efforts failed.
The Ever Give is coined about 6 miles north of the Red Sea entrance to the canal, near the city of Suez.
Prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipping chain. About 19,000 boats passed through the canal last year, according to official data. About 10% of world trade flows through the canal. The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East. Syria has already begun rationing the distribution of fuel in the war-torn country amid concerns about delayed shipments arriving amid the blockade.
Earlier Sunday, more than 320 ships were expected to travel across Suez, either to the Mediterranean or the Red Sea, according to Leth Agencies channel services firm. Dozens of others continue to categorize their destination as the canal, though shippers seem to be increasingly avoiding passage.
The world’s largest shipping company, Denmark’s AP Moller-Maersk, warned its customers it would take three to six days to clean up the backlog of ships on the canal. The firm and its partners already have 22 ships waiting for them.
“The current number (of) Maersk vessels and redirected partners is 14 and is expected to increase as we assess recovery efforts along with the network capacity and fuel of our vessels currently heading to Suez,” said the charger.
Mediterranean Shipping Co., the second-largest company in the world, said it had already redirected at least 11 ships around the hopeful African head to avoid the canal. He pushed back two other ships and said he was expecting “some lost navigations as a result of this incident.”
“MSC expects this incident to have a very significant impact on the movement of goods in containers, disrupting supply chains beyond the existing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, UAE.