Experts on Tuesday boarded a colossal cargo ships that had been stuck in the Suez Canal for almost a week before being released when questions swirled about the ground that had shaken the global shipping industry and blocked one of the world’s most important waterways.
The Ever Given was anchored in Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south ends of the canal, after rescue teams finally managed to release the skyscraper on Monday afternoon.
The ship, stuck sideways in a narrow stretch of canal, had stopped billions of dollars a day in shipping. A senior channel pilot, who spoke on condition of anonymity that he was not authorized to speak to journalists, told the Associated Press (AP) that experts were looking for signs of possible damage and were trying to determine the cause of the ship’s grounding.
Engineers examined the engines of the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship transporting goods from Asia to Europe to determine when exactly it could sail to its destination in the Netherlands, he said without elaborating.
Ships stacked with containers could be seen from the city of Suez and sailed in the northern part of the waterway. Suez Canal service provider Leth Agencies said more than three dozen ships that had been waiting for Ever to be released have already left the canal into the Red Sea since the waterway reopened for navigation at 6pm on Monday.
The shipping company, Shoei Kisen, said on Tuesday that it would be part of the investigation, which would also include other parties, even if it did not identify them by name. It also declined to discuss possible causes of the accident, including the alleged high speed and other faults, and said it could not comment on the ongoing investigation.
The company added that any damage to the ship is believed to be mostly on the bottom. Shoei Kisen said it was not immediately known if the ship will be repaired on site in Egypt or elsewhere, or if it will eventually go to its original destination Rotterdam. It is a decision to be made by its operator, rather than the shipowner, the company said.
On Monday, a raft boat with tugs, with the help of the tide, shifted the onion-shaped arch of Ever Given from the canal’s sandbank, where it had been properly laid since March 23. the water after days of nonsense that had captivated the world, drawn scrutiny and ridiculed social media.
Analysts expect that it may take at least another 10 days to clear the backlog at both ends of the Suez Canal. The Ever Given had crashed last Tuesday in a bank with a simple canal stretch about 6 kilometers north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez.
It created a massive traffic jam that kept up $ 9 billion a day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the global COVID-19 pandemic. At least 367 ships, which had everything from crude oil to cattle, had backed up to wait to cross the canal.
Dozens of others have taken the long, alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, a 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) detour that costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.
The channel is a source of national pride and crucial revenue for Egypt, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi praised Monday’s events after days of silence over the blockade. “The Egyptians have managed to end the crisis,” he wrote on Facebook, “despite the enormous technical complexity.”
The crisis over the ever-given had thrown a spotlight on the important trade route that carries over 10% of global trade, including 7% of world oil. More than 19,000 vessels ferrying Chinese-made consumer goods and millions of barrels of oil and liquefied natural gas flow through the artery from the Middle East and Asia to Europe and North America.
The unprecedented shutdown, which raised fears of long delays, commodity disputes and rising costs for consumers, has raised new questions about the shipping industry, a supplier on demand for a world under pressure from the pandemic.
