And so in a few hours a traffic jam was created tens of kilometers long with many ships blocked waiting to pass.
The timing of the reopening is uncertain
Half a day, one day, two days. Nobody says about the time it will take to get the super container back on track.
But the damage to the canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, and therefore to the Indian Ocean, from which more than 10% of the oil and liquefied natural gas transported by sea transit, especially from the Persian Gulf to Europe, is already considerable. . If it were truly days, markets for various commodities would suffer. Suffice it to say that in a few hours 10 million barrels of crude remained waiting on their tankers forced to anchor in both directions.
Inaugurated in 1869, not only oil and refined products pass through the Suez Canal. But a lot of goods, exported and imported from Europe. In both directions. Almost 19,000 ships passed through last year, according to data from the Sca, the authority of the Suez Canal. It is therefore clear that a large and populous country like Egypt cannot do without its revenues, which last year amounted to 5.6 billion dollars. The world is now looking with concern at what is happening in this strategic channel. Even if it was not a military operation carried out by two European powers, France and Great Britain, together with Israel, against the Egypt of the then president Nasser. As it happened in the 1956 crisis.
It was just a long ship full of sheep. And an unexpected blow of wind.