Meanwhile, the backlog of ships waiting for transit through Egypt’s vital waterway has grown to 326, according to Leth Agencies, the canal’s service provider.
The Syrian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said the blockage of the Suez Canal “had hindered oil supplies to Syria and delayed the arrival of a tanker carrying oil and oil derivatives to Syria,” the state-run SANA News reported.
Amid fears of fuel supplies, the Middle East has been forced to “ration the available amounts of petroleum derivatives, mainly diesel and benzene, to ensure their vital availability for as long as possible,” SANA said on Saturday.
The move has been taken “to ensure the continued provision of basic services to Syrians such as bakeries, hospitals, water stations, communication centers and other vital institutions,” SANA said, citing the ministry.
Syria will continue to ration oil supplies until “normal movement of navigation through the Suez Canal returns, which may take an unknown amount of time,” it added.
The Ever Given, a massive ship almost as long as the Empire State Building, ran aground in the Egyptian Channel on Tuesday after being caught in a 40-knot wind and sandstorm. Authorities are also investigating possible human or technical errors.
The blockage, in what is one of the world’s busiest and most important waterways, could have a major impact on already stretched global supply chains, with disruption escalating every day that passes.
A team of expert salvage operators from Dutch firm SMIT Salvage and Japan’s Nippon Salvage – who have worked on several high-profile operations in the past – have been appointed to help the Suez Canal Authority re-float the vessel, charter company Evergreen Marine. said in a statement.
During a press conference Saturday, SCA Chairman Osama Rabie gave details of the rescue operation, which he described as “technically difficult” and “involving many factors”.
“We are dealing with a difficult and complicated situation, we are working in a rocky bottom, the tides are very high, in addition to the enormous size of the ship and the number of containers making it difficult,” he said. “We cannot set a specific date for the ship to float, it depends on the ship’s response.”
About 9,000 tons of ballast water has been removed from the ship, Rabie said, with the dredging taking place during low tide while 14 tugs were operating during low tide. Rescue teams managed to temporarily restart the rudder and propellers on Friday night before an ebb tide halted their efforts, he said.
Two extra heavy tugs are expected to arrive at Ever Given on Sunday “presumably early in the evening,” a spokesman for Boskalis, a sister company of SMIT Salvage, told CNN.
The pair has a combined towing capacity of about 400 tons, says spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer. Once the tugs arrive, it may take a few hours to connect to the Ever Given, he said.
The Boskalis CEO said on Friday that he hoped that the extra bollard pull of those two tugs – combined with dredging, a 40 to 50 centimeter flood and the ‘leverage’ of the ship’s stern which is relatively free – would be enough to disrupt the draft. the container ship free.
According to Boskalis, a crane that could be used to retrieve containers from the bow should the plan fail either.
On Saturday, Rabie described that scenario – which would lighten the ship’s cargo – as a time-consuming and arduous process that “hopefully” they would not have to resort to.
Rabie added that the reasons behind the accident remain unclear. “There are many factors or reasons, fast winds and the sandstorm could have been a reason, but not the main reason – it could be technical error or human error,” he said. “There will be further research.”
Meanwhile, billions of dollars in vital cargo and sensitive products are left behind on the hundreds of ships whose roads have been blocked. About a dozen of them transport livestock.
The EU director of the NGO Animals International Gabriel Paun warned that thousands of animals transported on the ships – mostly Romanian – are at risk of dying if the situation is not resolved in the coming days.
CNN’s Magdy Samaan reported from Cairo and Mohammed Tawfeeq from Baghdad, while Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN’s Mostafa Salem and Mick Krever contributed to this report.