Suez (Egypt): Salvage teams Monday set free the colossal container ship ‘Ever Given’ which halted global trade through the Suez Canal. It brought an end to a crisis that for nearly a week had clogged one of the world’s most vital maritime arteries. Helped by the peak of high tide, a flotilla of tugboats managed to wrench the bulbous bow of the skyscraper-sized ‘Ever Given’ from the canal’s sandy bank. The ship had been firmly lodged at the spot since last Tuesday.
After hauling the fully laden 220,000-ton vessel over the canal bank, the salvage team was pulling the vessel toward the ‘Great Bitter Lake’ It is a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south end of the canal, where the ship will undergo technical inspection, canal authorities said.
Satellite data from ‘MarineTraffic.Com’ confirmed that the ship was moving away from the shoreline toward the center of the artery. Video released by the Suez Canal Authority showed the ‘Ever Given’ being escorted by the tugboats that helped free it. The tugboats and even ‘Ever Given’ were sounding off their horns in jubilation after nearly a week of chaos.
“We pulled it off!” said Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the ‘Ever Given’, in a statement. “I am excited to announce that our team of experts, working in close collaboration with the Suez Canal Authority, successfully refloated the ‘Ever Given’… thereby making free passage through the Suez Canal possible again,” he added.
The obstruction has created a massive traffic jam in the vital passage, holding up $9 billion each day in global trade. It also strained supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic.
It remained unclear when traffic through the canal would return to normal. At least 367 vessels, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle, have piled up on either end of the canal, waiting to pass. However, some movement of the obstructed vehicles have been noticed.
Data firm ‘Refinitiv’ estimated it could take more than 10 days to clear the backlog of ships. Meanwhile, dozens of vessels have opted for the alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip. It is 5,000-kilometre (3,100-mile) detour that adds some two weeks to journeys and costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other expense.
The freeing of the vessel came after dredgers vacuumed up sand and mud from the vessel’s bow. Then 10 tugboats pushed and pulled the vessel for five days, managing to partially refloat it at dawn.
It wasn’t clear whether ‘Ever Given’, a Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship hauling goods from Asia to Europe, would continue to its original destination of Rotterdam or if it would need to enter another port for repairs.
Ship operators did not offer a timeline for the reopening of the crucial canal, which carries over 10 per cent of global trade, including 7 per cent of the world’s oil. Over 19,000 ships passed through last year, according to canal authorities.
The unprecedented shutdown had threatened to disrupt oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East. It also raised fears of extended delays, goods shortages and rising costs for consumers.
