Traffic in the Suez Canal will be able to resume “Within 48-72 hours at the latest”: this is the forecast made today by the Egyptian authorities despite another attempt to free the container ship has failed «Ever Given», since Tuesday imprisoned in a sand bank along the strait that connects Mediterranean and Red Sea. The paralysis of one of the main sea routes of the planet therefore continues and at the same time the traffic jam of ships increases both at the north and south entrances of the canal.
Osama Rabie, president ofAuthority in Suez on Friday took stock of the situation: the dredger at work to free the gigantic container ship (400 meters long, one of the largest in the world) completed l‘87% of the work removing 17,000 cubic meters of sand around the bow of the Ever Given, wedged against the eastern bank of the canal. The excavation reached a depth of 15 meters (out of 16). However, the effort was not enough to move the enormous “Beached whale”, which is still in the exact position you are in stranded at 7.45 on Tuesday morning while sailing to Rotterdam. Osama Rabie has made it known that he counts on straighten the ship “within 48-72 hours”.
Even if the forecast were to be respected, traffic between Suez and Port Said it will not immediately resume at full speed. Yesterday they had become 280 ships that had massed at the two entrances of the canal (there were 150 the previous day): if all of them wait for the passage to reopen the traffic jam will not be disposed of immediately: the channel bears in fact a traffic of about 50 ships a day. Few, for the moment, the units that have decided to continue the journey facing the circumnavigation of Africa.
The calculation of the economic repercussions due to the bottling of maritime traffic: an estimate of Lloyd’s of London speaks of a global loss of $ 9.6 billion for every day of paralysis. For sure yesterday the price of crude oil (a good part of the tankers transporting oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe pass through Suez) is grew by 6% precisely due to the Ever Given accident.
March 26, 2021 (change March 26, 2021 | 20:37)
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