SUEZ, Egypt (AP) – Two additional tugs traveled to Egypt’s Suez Canal on Sunday to support efforts to free a skyscraper-sized container ship, which has been stranded for days on the crucial waterway, even as large shippers more and more boats are derailed for fear that the ship might take even longer to release.
The Ever Give massif, a Japanese-owned Panama-flagged ship carrying goods between Asia and Europe, was stranded on Tuesday in a single-lane portion of the canal. At that time, authorities failed to take the ship out and the canal traffic – valued at more than $ 9 billion a day – was shut down, further disrupting a global shipping network already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Dutch-flagged Alpine Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, called to help the tugs already there, arrived early Sunday in the Red Sea near the city of Suez, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed. The tugs will push Ever 400 meters (a quarter of a mile) long, while the dredges continue to suck the sand from under the ship and the mud thrown into port, said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, who manages Ever Date.
The workers planned to make two attempts on Sunday to release the ship coinciding with the high tides, said a top pilot of the canal authority.
“Sunday is very critical,” said the pilot. “It will determine the next step, which will most likely involve at least partial unloading of the ship.”
Removing the containers from the ship could add even more days to the closure of the canal, which the authorities have desperately tried to avoid. It would also require a crane and other equipment that has not yet arrived.
The pilot spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to inform journalists.
On Saturday, the head of the Suez Canal Authority told reporters that strong winds were not the “only cause” for Ever Date to collapse, appearing to push back against conflicting assessments from others. Lt. General Osama Rabei said an investigation was ongoing, but did not rule out human or technical errors.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement claims that “their initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of earthing”. However, at least one initial report suggested that a “blackout” hit the ship carrying about 20,000 containers at the time of the incident.
Rabei said he remained hopeful that dredging could free the ship without resorting to removing its cargo, but added that “we are in a difficult situation, it is a bad incident.”
Asked when they expected the ship to be released and the canal reopened, he said, “I can’t say because I don’t know.”
Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns the ship, said it is considering disposing of the containers if other refloating efforts fail.
The Ever Date is embedded about 6 kilometers north of the entrance to the canal in the Red Sea, near the city of Suez.
Prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global transport chain. About 19,000 ships passed through the canal last year, according to official figures. About 10% of world trade flows through the canal. The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East. Syria has already begun to reason on the distribution of fuel in the war-torn country amid concerns about transport delays arriving amid blockages.
As of Sunday, more than 320 ships were expected to travel through Suez, either in the Mediterranean or in the Red Sea, according to service company Leth Agencies. Dozens of others have further categorized their destination as a channel, although shippers seem to be increasingly avoiding passage.
The world’s largest shipping company, Denmark AP Moller-Maersk, has warned its customers that it will take between three and six days to remove the remaining ships from the canal. Already, the company and its partners have 22 ships waiting there.
“The current number of Maersk ships and redirected partners is 14 and is expected to increase as we assess rescue efforts along with the network capacity and fuel on our ships currently in Suez,” the shipper said.
Mediterranean Shipping Co., the second largest in the world, said it had already redirected at least 11 ships around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to avoid the canal. He turned back two other ships and said he expected “some ships missed as a result of this incident.”
“MSC expects this incident to have a very significant impact on the movement of containerized goods, disrupting supply chains beyond the existing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.