Cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal is moving again
After the colossal ship that had blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week was partially flooded earlier Monday, it has now been released, according to local witnesses and a shipping agency in Egypt.
With the help of high tide, a beautiful tugboat managed to unscrew the arch of the skyscraper size ever given from the sandbank by the important waterway, the shipping company Leth said in a statement.
The Suez Canal Authority posted a video on its website showing 200,000 tons of container ship moving slowly down the middle of the crucial waterway.
The ship is now reportedly on its way to Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the northern and southern ends of the canal, where, according to canal authorities, it was to undergo technical investigation.
Last Tuesday, Ever Given in skyscraper size, stuck sideways in the crucial waterway, creating a massive traffic jam. The barrier has kept $ 9 billion up in the U.S. every day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.
At least 367 ships carrying everything from crude oil to cattle were still waiting to pass through the canal, while dozens took the long alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa – a detour that costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and Other expenses.
10 days to remove the backlog with channel transfers stopped, Egypt has already lost over $ 95 million in revenue, according to data firm Refinitiv. If the ship is released within the next few days, it will take over 10 days to clear the backlog of ships waiting to pass through the canal, Refinitiv said.
Even before the ship was completely released, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi portrayed the development as a victory in his first comments on the stranded ship.
“The Egyptians have managed to end the crisis,” he wrote on Facebook.
The price of the international benchmark Brent crude oil fell about two percent to just over $ 63 in the news.
Now that the blockade has moved, the crucial channel that carries over 10 percent of global trade, including seven percent of world oil, can now get going again soon. Millions of barrels of oil and liquefied natural gas flow through the artery from the Persian Gulf to Europe and North America.
The unprecedented shutdown has threatened to disrupt oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East and raised fears of long delays, shortages of goods and rising costs for consumers.
As a breakthrough window narrows with highs falling this week, fears have grown that authorities will be forced to lighten the ship by removing the ship’s 20,000 containers – a complex operation that requires special equipment not found in Egypt, and which can take days or weeks.
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