It still blocks access to one of the busiest trade routes in the world. Friday March 26, theEver-Given, a giant container ship, was still stranded at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal. The cargo ship, flying the Panamanian flag, was on its way to Rotterdam from China when it got stuck between the two banks of the sea route, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday.
On Friday, more than 150 ships awaited its release, including ships near Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea, Port Suez on the Red Sea and those already stranded in the canal system on the Grand Amer Lake in Egypt, said Leth Agencies, which provides services for the canal.
Update on the causes and consequences of this incident.
The 400m-long ship deviated from its course amid strong gusts of sand wind that had affected Egypt and parts of the Middle East. TheEver-Given then got in the way of the canal, blocking all navigation between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea in both directions. The ship’s operator, Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corp, said the ship ran aground “Probably after being hit by a gust of wind”.
The incident “Is mainly due to the lack of visibility due to the weather conditions, when the winds reached 40 knots [74 km/h], which affected the control of the vessel ‘, the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said in a statement Wednesday.
According to Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), the Singapore-based company that provides technical management of the ship, the 25 crew members are safe and sound. And there was no pollution or damage to the cargo of the ship, with a capacity of more than 20,000 containers (TEU or TEU).
An uncertain exit date from the crisis
Since Wednesday, the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has been trying to clear the vessel, which weighs more than 220,000 tons. “Tugs and dredges are used to break rocks” and vacuuming up the sand, said an official from the Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha, owner of the boat. According to the SCA, between 15,000 and 20,000 m3 sand to reach a depth of 12 to 16 m and put the ship afloat. 87% of that process had been carried out by dredgers as of Friday, SCA said.
The latter and the owner of the container ship have displayed their optimism, betting on an imminent end to the crisis – “Tomorrow evening at Japanese time” according to Shoei Kisen Friday or “In forty-eight to seventy-two hours at the most” according to Mohab Mamish, adviser to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi for the port sector, Thursday evening.
The Dutch company commissioned for the “Rescue” of the’Ever-Given, Smit Salvage, for her part, was much more cautious, evoking “Days, even weeks” before the resumption of traffic on the canal. Because, if despite the efforts madeEver-Given remains stuck in the sand, it will have to be unloaded of part of its containers, its ballast water or its fuel oil, to be refloated, which could lengthen the duration of the rescue operations.
The United States has also offered to help the Egyptian authorities. “These discussions are continuing and I hope we can say more soon”, explained spokesperson Jen Psaki. According to a US military official who requested anonymity, the United States offered to send a team of US Navy experts to the scene.
Replacement roads put in place
The Danish company Maersk, of which seven ships are stationary, told its customers on Wednesday that it would inform them of possible “Replacement options”. A similar announcement was made on Thursday by Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd. Others, like the liquefied natural gas carrier Pan Americas, have already decided to change course.
The only possibility to link Europe to Asia or the Middle East is to head for Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, i.e. a detour of about 9,000 km, for about ten additional travel days.
Russia is trying to promote another path. Russian diplomacy official Nikolai Korchunov on Friday estimated that the blockade of the Suez Canal “Highlighted the need above all for the further development of the Northern Sea Route”, sea route in the Russian Arctic that is increasingly practicable due to global warming.
The accident makes the oil price jump
This strategic crossing point alone concentrates between 10% and 12% of the volume of world trade each year. A figure linked to shipments from factories in the Far East to European consumers, but also to the shipment of petroleum products.
The price of oil therefore jumped almost 6% on Wednesday alone, driven by fears about the supply of black gold. According to a note from the US Energy Agency from July 2019, 9% of petroleum products transported at sea pass through the Suez Canal and the nearby Sumed pipeline. “The Suez Canal is growing in importance for the transport of petroleum products from Russia and the United States to Asia”, the US government agency noted in 2019. Since Tuesday, more than 30 tankers have been stuck in both directions on the canal, waiting to be able to pass, data from Refinitiv shows.
Less serious precedents, linked to the size of the ships
Nearly 19,000 ships used the canal in 2020, according to the SCA, an average of 51.5 ships per day. According to a report by insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty on maritime safety, “The Suez Canal has an excellent safety record, on the whole, navigation incidents being extremely rare – a total of 75 shipping incidents have been reported over the past decade ”. Accidents, which, when they happen, are of low severity: thanks to the soft soil of the Suez Canal, stranded ships are generally not damaged. In 2017, a Japanese ship ran aground before being refloated after a few hours. The unprecedented nature of this accident is therefore mainly linked to the length of the blockage it entails.
“It is difficult not to see in this accident one of the consequences of the gigantism at work in maritime transport, adds Julien Bouissou, journalist for World world trade specialist, in an analysis. Over the past twenty years, the average vessel size has tripled (…). The giant container ships [à l’image du Ever-Given, long de 400 m] are particularly difficult to maneuver at this location. “
An essential source of income for Egypt
The Suez Canal brought in $ 5.61 billion (4.74 billion euros) in 2020 to Egypt. A source of income that the country was working to increase, by investing in particular in the widening of the canal, started in 2015, with a stated objective: to reduce waiting times and double the number of ships using it by 2023. Since then, the authorities have regularly announced new tonnage records. In August 2019, 6.1 million tonnes passed through it in one day.
Conceived at the initiative of Ferdinand de Lesseps, French entrepreneur and diplomat, the colossal project aiming to link the Red and Mediterranean Seas required ten years of work (1859-1869). In 1875, Egypt’s foreign debt forced it to sell its shares of the canal to the United Kingdom, very interested in this rapid access to its Indian colonial territories. Egypt did not regain control of the canal until 1956, with the nationalization of it by Gamal Abdel Nasser, just elected president.