The giant container ship blocking traffic in the Suez Canal for six days is finally ocean-bound, as maritime officials freed the stuck vessel. This crisis has caused a lot of issues and destroyed billions of dollars in commerce.
Since no ships have been able to pass through the Suez Canal, billions of dollars in goods are stuck in transit. These sea traffic delays caused an international logistics nightmare.
The ship got stuck because of a sandstorm which caused it to crash. The boat, which was called the Ever Given, cost the commerce industry roughly $9 billion per day. This impact is devastating, but in a pandemic, the weight of the delays is much heavier.
The COVID-19 pandemic already caused international logistics headaches, but Ever Given’s accident in the Suez Canal compounded those frustrations. It will be interesting to see how shipping recovers in the coming days.
The Suez Canal Freeing Process
Rescue teams have been working nonstop since the container ship clogged the Suez Canal. On Monday, tugboats were pulled the container ship out of the canal. A high tide supported the tugs, which helped dislodge the giant container ship.
The container ship was stuck in the canal since March 23rd. Those working to dislodge the boat deserve tons of credit for getting it out in less than a week. The tugboat drivers celebrated by blasting horns as they pulled the ship to security, opening up the waterway for commerce.
The Container Ship
Once the container ship was released, it began moving towards the Great Bitter Lake. The lake is a vast section in the middle of the canal. Inspectors will search the vessel when it arrives to ensure that a problem like this never occurs again. This information was presented to the media by a spokesperson from Evergreen Marine Corporation, a Taiwanese-based shipping organization.
The Boskalis company was responsible for removing the ship. Following the Ever Given’s dislodgement, the company’s CEO Peter Berdowski said, “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.”
Suez Canal Financial Crisis
Some ship captains elected to take a longer route around the Suez Canal to get to where they needed to bring their cargo. The re-route travels around Africa’s southern tip, a 3,100-mile detour, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in supplementary fuel costs.
Close to 370 vessels were unable to go through the canal, forcing them to wait. Those ships’ captains faced a tough decision because they would either lost time by waiting it out or losing money by taking the alternate route.
Financial loss defined the delay in the Suez Canal. Egypt uses the waterway as a principal way of making money. On its own, Egypt lost $95 million in shipping tolls in six days. The government and its citizens who rely on the canal were thrilled when workers removed the ship.
It could take up to ten more days for traffic to return to normal, so companies will still lose money for the time being by shipping through the Suez Canal.
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