The unblocking of the ship which has been obstructing the Suez Canal in Egypt since Tuesday could be faster than announced. At least that’s what the owner of the container ship says, who says he is hopeful that the ship will be released on the evening of Saturday March 27, when days – even weeks – were previously mentioned.
“We are in the process of removing the sediment, with additional dredging tools”Yukito Higaki, president of the Japanese company Shoei Kisen, said at a Friday press conference reported to the Japanese press on Saturday. He said he hoped for an unblocking of theEver Given for “Tomorrow (Saturday) evening”. “The ship is not taking on water. There is no problem with its rudders and propellers. Once it has been refloated, it should be able to function ”, added the leader.
But Smit Salvage, the company commissioned for the “Rescue” of the’Ever Given, had previously been more cautious, evoking “Days, even weeks”, to ensure the unblocking of the ship and the resumption of traffic in the canal, which sees 10% of international maritime trade pass, according to experts.
Same caution on the side of the parent company of theEver Given. “With the ships that we will have on site by then, the soils that we have already been able to dredge and the high tide, this will hopefully be enough to be able to clear the ship early next week”, explained on Saturday Peter Berdowski, the executive director of Royal Boskalis, parent company of the Dutch company commissioned to help with the task, interviewed during a talk show on Dutch public television on Friday evening. If that is not enough, it will be necessary to proceed with the removal of containers to lighten the ship, warned Berdowski, a solution that would take much longer.
“Complex technical process”
Since Wednesday, the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has been trying to clear this vessel weighing more than 220,000 tons and the length of four football fields, stuck in the south of the canal, a few kilometers from the city from Suez. An operation carried out on Friday by the SCA with the help of tugs ” did not succeed “, announced Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), a Singapore-based company providing technical management of the vessel. “Two additional (Egyptian) tugs of 220 to 240 tonnes” must arrive by Sunday for a new attempt, according to the company.
In a statement, Admiral Ossama Rabie, chairman of the SCA, explained on Friday evening that “Towing maneuvers require a combination of several factors (…), the most important of which is the direction of the winds and tides ”, speaking of “Complex technical process”.
A significant high tide forecast ” Sunday night “ could “To be of great help” for technical teams looking to unblock the vessel, explained Plamen Natzkoff, expert at VesselsValue. “If they do not manage to unlock it during this high tide, the next one will not take place for two weeks, and it will become problematic”, he said. TheEver Given “Is not only stranded on the surface sand, it is also stuck inside the bank”, according to Natzkoff. “We will have to dig where the boat entered the bank, in order to allow it to move again. And it’s clearly a big job ”, he judges.
Excavators began digging the bank on Wednesday, and dredgers to suck sand from under the ship on Friday, to make the tugboats’ work easier.
More than two hundred ships on standby
The incident on Tuesday and caused by high winds combined with a sandstorm, according to various sources, resulted in massive traffic jams. According to the specialist journal Lloyd’s List, more than two hundred ships were stranded on Friday at both ends and in the waiting area in the middle of the canal, causing significant delays in deliveries of oil and other products, with a brief impact on the prices of the black gold Wednesday.
According to Lloyd’s List, the stranded container ship blocks the equivalent of around $ 9.6 billion (€ 8.1 billion) in goods every day. Danish shipping giant Maersk and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd announced Thursday that they plan to divert their ships and pass through the Cape of Good Hope, a detour of 9,000 kilometers and at least seven additional days around of the African continent.