Suez Canal: Ending Snarl-Up Still Needs Work as Ship Partly Refloated

A giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal has been partially re-floated, though there’s still significant work ahead to fully dislodge the stricken vessel and clear one of the world’s most critical trade arteries.

The Ever Given has moved about 80% of the way back toward a normal position within the waterway, according to the Suez Canal Authority, indicating some success in rescue efforts. However, there’s still a major task ahead to fully dislodge the 200,000-ton ship, according to Peter Berdowski, chief executive officer of Boskalis Westminster, the parent company of the salvage team

“Pulling the rear end of the ship afloat was the easy part, the challenging part will be the front of the ship” Berdowski told NPO Radio 1 in the Netherlands. “Now we will start working at the front. We do not want to celebrate too early.”

The Ever Given -- which is longer than the canal is wide and was wedged across the waterway on Tuesday -- has snarled global supply lines that were already under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic. A flotilla of 10 tug boats was deployed in the rescue effort in the early hours of Monday, after salvage teams spent days using diggers and dredgers to try to loosen the grounded vessel.

Salvage maneuvers are scheduled to resume at about 11:30 a.m. local time and shipping navigation along the waterway will begin again once the container carrier is moved to the Great Bitter Lake area for technical checks, the canal authority said.

“Today we will start our plan for all the ships to cross the canal,” said Mohab Mamish, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s adviser for the Suez Canal. “It could take around one week to get all ships out of the Suez canal corridor.”

At last count, about 450 vessels were either stuck waiting or headed to the waterway, which is a conduit for about 12% of world trade. Others have diverted to the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.

“It’s one thing to refloat the ship, it’s another thing to completely clear the canal of traffic,” Hugo de Stoop, CEO of Euronav NV, which owns crude tankers, told Bloomberg TV in an interview. “Whatever that has been accumulated so far will take time to clear.” It could take two to three weeks to fully clear the canal, he said.

Shipping experts anticipate already-stretched ocean freight markets will see even more tightness over the coming months because of disrupted schedules and the uneven wave of cargo that will hit ports down the line.

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