Suez Canal: Ship blockage, A human error may be the cause

AFP

According to the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA), a "human error" could be at the origin of the grounding of the Ever Given, a container ship blocked in the canal since Tuesday 23 March. Nearly 300 ships are currently blocked in the Suez Canal, which carries nearly 10% of the world's maritime trade.

The head of the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority said on Saturday 27 March that "human error" could be the cause of the grounding of the container ship, as efforts to refloat the vessel blocking the world's busiest shipping lane intensify.

The Ever Given, a container ship weighing more than 220,000 tonnes and 400 metres long, has been stuck in the southern part of the canal, a few kilometres from the city of Suez, since Tuesday and is blocking the strategic route, which sees about 10% of international maritime trade, experts say. Some 300 ships are currently stuck at both ends of the canal linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, said Ossama Rabie, head of the Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA). While high winds combined with a sandstorm were initially blamed for the incident, he said weather conditions were not the only reason for the grounding. "Other errors, human or technical, could also have come into play," said Ossama Rabie at a press conference in Suez.

The blockage is causing major delays in the delivery of oil and other products, with repercussions on the price of black gold, which rose on Friday. Ossama Rabie estimated that Egypt was losing between $12 million and $14 million for each day the canal was closed, while trade publication Lloyd's list estimated that the stuck container ship was blocking the equivalent of about $9.6 billion (€8.1 billion) worth of goods each day.

Efforts have been mounting since Wednesday to refloat the behemoth. Excavators have been digging up the bank and dredgers have been sucking sand from under the ship since Friday to make it easier for the tugs to work. "We can finish today or tomorrow, depending on how the ship reacts to the tides. We have other rescue scenarios in place," added Rabie. The parent company of the Dutch company contracted by the ship's operator to refloat Ever Given said a refloating was possible "early next week". "With the vessels we will have on site by then, the soil we have already been able to dredge and the high tide, it will hopefully be enough to be able to free the ship early next week," said Peter Berdowski, the executive director of Royal Boskalis, the parent company of Smit Salvage.

If this is not enough, containers will have to be removed to lighten the ship, warned Peter Berdowski, interviewed on Dutch public television. This option would result in "a very long delay" in the resumption of traffic, according to Nick Sloane, a renowned specialist in ship salvage. "The quickest way would be to use dredgers and clear the sand [...] to allow the ship to float again," says the man who was in charge of the rescue of the Costa Concordia, which sank in 2012 off the coast of Tuscany. "It's not a quick operation," he added. "It will take weeks, not days."

Because the Ever Given "is not only stranded on the sand on the surface, it also got stuck in the bank," Plamen Natzkoff, an expert at VesselsValue, told AFP. The ship's owner was more confident. Yukito Higaki, president of the Japanese company Shoei Kisen, said on Friday he hoped the ship would be freed on Saturday evening, according to the Japanese press.

A salvage operation on Friday failed, according to Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), the Singapore-based company that is technically managing the ship.

A large high tide expected "on Sunday evening" could "be of great help", said Plamen Natzkoff. "If they don't manage to unblock it during this high tide, the next one won't happen for another two weeks." Shipping giant Maersk and Germany's Hapag-Lloyd said on Thursday they were considering diverting their ships and sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, a 9,000-kilometre diversions and at least seven more days around the African continent. Nearly 19,000 ships used the canal in 2020, according to the SCA, an average of 51.5 ships per day.

Source: AFP