After four days of standstill, operations began, which are expected to be complex, to free the Canal from the Ever Given container ship. The Suez Canal Authority has announced the end of the dredging operations (excavation of the seabed) and the beginning of the towing maneuvers of the container ship which has been blocking the important maritime connection between Asia and Europe since Tuesday. However, it is a complex procedure that involves several attempts, which could also fail.
“The head of the authority, Admiral Osama Rabie, announced the start of towing of the stranded ship through nine gigantic tugs at the head of which there are the Baraka 1 and Ezzat Adel”, reports a post published the night last on the Authority’s Facebook page.
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This, it is added, “after the end of the dredging operations around the bow of the ship carried out by the dredger Mashour. Admiral Rabie explained that towing maneuvers require the availability of several auxiliary factors, the most important of which are wind direction, high and low tides: a complex technical process that has its own estimates, procedures and multiple attempts », the text adds.
Ever Given, 400 meters long and almost 60 meters wide, ran aground in the Suez Canal in the midst of a sandstorm, going sideways and completely obstructing it, forcing companies to divert their ships. The blockade has also created a traffic jam of more than 200 ships stationary in the Red Sea, according to data from the newspaper Lloyd’s List. Losses are estimated at 9.6 billion per day. Yukito Higaki, president of the Shoei Kisen Kaisha company, said yesterday that “the ship is not taking on water” and “once it is cleared it will be able to sail”.
The United States, concerned about the impact of the blockade of the Suez Canal on the markets, offered assistance to Egypt “to reopen the canal”. Turkey also stepped forward, aiming to relaunch relations with Egypt after the strong tensions following the dismissal in 2013 of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, an expression of the Muslim Brotherhood.