A giant container ship got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal in Egypt for a fifth day Saturday, as authorities prepared to make new efforts to free the ship and reopen a crucial east-west waterway for global shipping.
The owners of the Ever Given say a gust of wind pushed him and his massive load of more than 20,000 shipping containers sideways into the canal on Tuesday, trapping it between the canal’s sandy shores. The huge ship became trapped in a one-lane stretch of the canal a few miles from the south entrance.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, Ever Given’s technical manager, said an attempt to free it on Friday has failed.
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Plans were in the making to pump water from the ship’s interior spaces, and by Sunday two more tugs would arrive to join others who were already trying to move the massive ship, he said.
An official with the Suez Canal Authority said they planned to make at least two attempts on Saturday to free the ship when the tide goes down.
According to channel service provider Leth Agencies, a traffic jam outside the Suez Canal grew to about 280 ships on Saturday. Some ships began to change course and dozens of ships were still on their way to the waterway, according to data company Refinitiv.
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Shoei Kisen president Yukito Higaki told a press conference at the company’s headquarters in Imabari in western Japan that 10 tugs were deployed and that workers were dredging the shores and seabed near the ship’s bow to try to keep it afloat again. when the tide starts to float. .
Shoei Kisen said in a statement on Saturday that the company is considering removing containers to lighten the ship if the raft fails, but that would be a difficult operation.
The White House said it has offered to help Egypt reopen the channel. “We have equipment and capacity that most countries do not have and we see what we can do and what help we can provide,” President Joe Biden told reporters Friday.
A prolonged closure of the critical waterway would cause delays in the global transport chain. According to official figures, about 19,000 ships passed through the canal last year. About 10% of world trade flows through the canal, which is especially crucial for the transportation of oil. The shutdown could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East.
It remained unclear how long the block would last. Even after the channel reopening that connects factories in Asia with consumers in Europe, waiting containers are likely to arrive at busy ports, causing additional delays before unloading.
Apparently anticipating long delays, the trapped ship’s owners have diverted a sister ship, the Ever Greet, on a course around Africa, according to satellite data.
Others are also being diverted. According to satellite data from MarineTraffic.com, the liquid natural gas tanker Pan Americas changed course in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is now aiming south to go around the southernmost tip of Africa.
The Financial Times reported Friday that a number of shipping groups had contacted the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet over concerns about the maritime safety of ships choosing to sail south around Africa, bringing them into waters off the continent’s east coast. with a long history. of piracy.
“Africa is at risk of piracy, especially in East Africa,” Zhao Qing-feng of the China Shipowners’ Association in Shanghai told the FT, saying owners may need to hire additional security forces to board their ships before they make the longer journey.
It’s another factor that could cause a serious slowdown and a possible price hike for goods moving from Asia to Europe and the US, and yet another headache for a global supply chain system already under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic .
Egyptian authorities have banned media access to the site. The channel authority said the chief, Lieutenant General Osama Rabei, would hold a press conference on Saturday in the city of Suez, a few kilometers (miles) from the ship’s site.