Cairo – Maritime traffic on the Suez Canal remained blocked on Friday for the fourth day in a row, with dozens of ships trapped at the northern and southern entrances of the shortest route between Asia and Europe. Efforts to evacuate one of the largest cargo ships in the world, hooked sideways across the narrow channel since Tuesday, was starting to pick up the pace, and while one of the teams in charge of the operation said it could take weeks, an adviser to the Egyptian president offered a more optimistic timetable .
Mohab Mamish, adviser on seaports to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and former chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, told the AFP news agency on Thursday that navigation on the canal “will resume again in a short time maximum 48-72 hours “.
Suez Canal Authority
Mamish cited his “experience with several such rescue operations” and said he knew “every inch of the canal.”
The SCA announced earlier this week that all navigation on the canal would be “temporarily suspended” until the Panamanian-flagged container ship MV Ever given could be re-floated.
The SCA said on Thursday after meeting with Dutch rescue company SMIT, which is helping to lead the operation, that about 19,600-26,000 cubic meters of sand had to be moved, to a depth of 40 to 50 feet along the edge of the canal, to evacuate the ship.
On Wednesday, the SCA allowed the entry of 13 ships at the northern end of the canal, from the Mediterranean, in the hope that the Ever Give would disengage quickly and that the other cargo ships could continue their voyages. But these boats only got to a lake in the middle of the canal, and they might not go anywhere quickly.
Egypt uses at least eight tugs and excavation equipment along the canal, but so far all efforts to refloat the nearly a quarter-mile 247,000-ton container ship have failed.
Suez Canal Authority
The SCA said on Thursday that an “alternative scenario” was being adopted, with ships entering the canal on Wednesday from the north “anchoring in the waiting area of the Bitter Lakes, until navigation can be resumed completely”.
Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp., which operates the chartered vessel on behalf of the Japanese company that owns it, hired Dutch firm Smit Salvage and Japanese firm Nippon Salvage to work with the ship’s captain and the Suez Canal Authority. to find out how to float it.
Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis, which owns Smit Salvage, said Thursday it was still too early to determine how long the work could take.
“We can’t rule out that it may take weeks, depending on the situation,” Berdowski told Dutch television program “Nieuwsuur,” according to Reuters. Shipping sources told Reuters that if the delays continue, ships could begin redirecting to the southern tip of Africa, adding up to thousands of miles and about a week on the voyage.
CBS News / Satellite Photo Credit: CNES / AIRBUS DS via REUTERS
The Japanese company that owns Ever Done, Shoei Kisen, told The Associated Press that it was cooperating with local authorities, but “the operation is extremely difficult.”
“We deeply regret having caused a huge concern to ships traveling or planning to travel on the Suez Canal and all related people,” the company said.
Up to 30% of the world’s shipping of shipping containers normally passes through the Suez Canal every day, a journey that takes about six hours, which accounts for about 12% of the total goods traded worldwide, according to Reuters.
The news agency quoted industrial consultancy Kpler as saying that while the canal only facilitates transit of about 4.4% of the world’s flow of petroleum products, a prolonged disruption could affect supplies to Asia and Europe, and an impact on world oil prices seemed inevitable. .
Meanwhile, the incident, and in particular the fact that a single ship, though very large, has disrupted world trade and a photo of the hull of the ship sending a lone excavator sent to try to drive it away, has inspired a great deal. of memes on social media. CBS ‘own “salty” Stephen Colbert even put on a captain’s hat to dissect the maritime disaster on his Wednesday night program.
As long as the fun continues online, stress levels will no doubt continue to rise, both for the owners of the boat, who have to pay the bill for the rescue operation, and for the authority of the Egyptian canal, which already suffered a drop in revenue thanks to the COVID pandemic.