“Ship in front of us ran aground while going through the canal and is now stuck sideways looks like we might be here for a little bit…”
BREAKING NEWS:
CNN is reporting that the Ever Given that has been blocking the Suez Canal for almost a week has now been dislodged and is now floating.
UPDATE III:
The latest on the efforts to dislodge the Ever Given, including the interesting view from a hamlet at the place where the ship grounded (population “5,000-ish”): “’Why don’t they pull out one of those containers?” joked Umm Gaafar, 65. ‘There could be something good in there. Maybe it could feed the town.’” More HERE
UPDATE II:
As of this writing, no significant progress has been made in efforts to dislodge the Ever Given from its position blocking passage through the Suez Canal and financial, economic even maritime security concerns keep growing.
Because of the region’s “well-documented history of piracy, with attacks jumping in 2020,” Forbes reports that appeals have been made to the U.S. Navy to help out and CNN confirms the US Navy in the Middle East is planning to “send an assessment team of dredging experts to the Suez Canal as soon as Saturday to advise local authorities…”
For an excellent technical summary of this shipping disaster, please read “Suez Canal: Satellite Clues on a Stricken Cargo Ship” HERE.
UPDATE I:
The 224,000-ton Ever Given continues wedged in the Suez Canal, totally blocking that vital waterway.
Efforts continue to dislodge the vessel by digging around its bow and stern and using dredgers and tugboats to try to pry it lose.
Some experts fear that it could take days, even weeks, to free the ship.
In the meantime, the traffic back-up continues to grow with some 237 ships left waiting as of Thursday and hundreds more headed towards the canal.
Some of the economic/financial consequences:
• Lloyd’s List estimates that each day the canal is closed, some $9 billion worth of goods are affected.
• Oil prices may also be affected
• Some shipping firms may be forced to reroute vessels around the southern tip of Africa, which would add seven to twelve days to the journey.
• One Evergreen ship has reportedly already been diverted around the Cape of Good Hope.
At a more “personal” level, The Independent reports on one British businessman, a Mr. Ox, who is pretty stressed as “he has £1.8m [$2.5 million] worth of chilled lamb from New Zealand currently ‘doing donuts’ in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden due to the blockage in the Suez Canal.”
We wish “Fantastic Mr. Ox” and his chilled lamb well.
Sources: Washington Post, CNN, Star Tribune
Original Post:
I am sure most of us have been “stuck in traffic” on the way to work or on the way home.
Usually, a phone call to the office or home and a wait of a couple of hours, at most, are involved.
But how about if you are a container ship on your merry way from Shenzhen, China, to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, loaded with agricultural goods and you encounter a gigantic traffic jam.
That is exactly what is happening in one of the world’s busiest and most important waterways, the 120-mile Suez Canal, “the quickest sea route between Asia and Europe,” also used by oil tankers shipping crude from the Middle East to Europe and North America, altogether making up “about 12% of global trade and 8% of liquefied natural gas [passing] through the canal, as do around one million barrels of oil each day,” according to Bloomberg.com.
According to vesselfinder.com, the Ever Given, one of the largest cargo container ships in the world (about 224,000 tons), turned sideways Tuesday morning, its bow touching the canal’s eastern wall and its stern lodged against its western wall, blocking all traffic in the busy Suez Canal.
The result: More than more than 100 vessels transiting or awaiting to transit the canal in both directions are now stuck in this watery traffic jam.
GAC, a global shipping and logistics company, describes the Ever Given as suffering “a blackout while transiting in a northerly direction,” according to vesselfinder.com.
Apparently, the ship encountered strong winds as it entered the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. According to vesselfinder.com, “Egyptian forecasters said high winds and a sandstorm plagued the area Tuesday, with winds gusting as much as 50 kph (31 mph).”
Vesselfinder.com posted a video reproducing the movements of the Ever Given at the time of the grounding (below).
Ten years ago, the U.S.-based Energy Information Administration identified the Suez Canal as “one of seven geographic choke points, critically important to the world trade and susceptible to blockages or pirate attacks.”
Today, as the pandemic is straining world economies — in particular, the cruise and shipping industry — every day on average 50 vessels transit through the canal. Thus, any closing of the canal means “container ships and tankers are not delivering food, fuel and manufactured goods to Europe and goods are not being exported from Europe to the Far East.”
Any prolonged disruption could mean ships need to reroute. Bypassing the Suez Canal by traveling around the Cape of Good Hope can add another two weeks to the voyage from Asia to Europe, leading to significant additional costs and disrupting schedules…
The shipping industry has had a tumultuous year since the Covid-19 pandemic began roiling global trade in 2020. As countries closed borders to try keep the virus under control, exports from China surged, leading to a dearth of containers and sending maritime rates soaring. The pandemic also exacerbated labor abuse in the industry, with thousands of seafarers stuck on vessels beyond the expiration of their contracts and past the requirements of globally accepted safety standards.
Next time you are stuck in traffic on Canal Street, thank your lucky stars it is not the Suez Canal.
