Engineers on Monday “flooded” the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, a canal service company said without giving further details on when the ship would be completely free. Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed that the ship’s glowing arc, once embedded in the canal’s east shore, had been twisted from the shore.
Almost a week ago, Ever Given got stuck in the skyscraper sideways in the important waterway and created a massive traffic jam. The barrier has kept up $ 9 billion every day in global trade and strained supply chains already plagued by the coronavirus pandemic. At least 367 ships, transporting everything from crude oil to cattle, were still waiting to cross the canal, while dozens more took the alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, adding two weeks to travel and threatening delivery delays.
The partial release of the ship came after intense efforts to shoot and tow the ship with 10 tugboats when the full moon carried spring water, said Leth Agencies and raised the canal’s water level and hopes for a breakthrough. Videos that were widely shared on social media seemed to show tugs in the canal that sounded their horns to celebrate the Ever shift from the beach, the most important sign of progress so far. Lieutenant Colonel Osama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority, confirmed that the ship had partially regrouped after responding successfully to “pull-and-push maneuvers.” He said the workers had almost completely straightened the ship’s course and that the stern had moved 102 meters (334 feet) from the canal bank.
When high tide returns at 11:30 a.m. local time on Monday, salvage crews will resume their efforts to pull the ship into the middle of the waterway and toward Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south ends of the canal, where it will undergo technical investigation, he said.
Overnight, several dredgers had worked to suck up 27,000 cubic meters of sand and mud around the ship. Another powerful tugboat, Carlo Magno, competed to the spot to join the effort. Although the ship is vulnerable to damage in its current position, Shoei Kisen dismissed Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns Ever Given, on Monday, saying that the ship’s engine was functional and that it could continue its journey normally when it became free. It was not clear if the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship, which transports goods from Asia to Europe, would go to its original destination Rotterdam or if it would have to go into another port for repairs.
Shipowners did not offer a timeline for the resumption of the crucial channel, which carries over 10% of global trade, including 7% of world oil. More than 19,000 ships passed last year, according to the channel authorities. Millions of barrels of oil and liquefied natural gas flow through the artery from the Persian Gulf to Europe and North America. Goods made in China – furniture, clothing, the basics of the supermarket – on their way to Europe must also cross the canal, or otherwise take a varied 5,000 kilometers of detour around the southern tip of Africa.
The unsurpassed shutdown has threatened to disrupt oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East and raised fears of long delays, good shortages and rising costs for consumers. The canal authorities have desperately tried to free the ship by relying on tugs and dredging alone, although analysts warned that a 400-meter-long ship, weighing 220,000 tonnes, could be too heavy for such an operation. As a breakthrough window narrows with high tide this week, fears have grown that the authorities will be forced to light the ship by removing the ship’s 20,000 containers – a complex operation that requires special equipment not found in Egypt, which can take days or weeks.
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