Meanwhile, the number of ships awaiting transit through vital Egyptian waterways has risen to 326, according to Leth, the channel’s service provider.
Syria’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said the Suez Canal blockade “prevented the supply of oil to Syria and delayed the arrival of an oil tanker transporting oil and oil derivatives to Syria,” state news SANA reported.
Amid fears over fuel supplies, the Middle Eastern nation has been forced to ration out “available quantities of oil derivatives, mainly diesel and benzene, to ensure their vital availability for as long as possible,” SANA said on Saturday. .
The move was made “to ensure the continued provision of basic services to Syrians, such as bakeries, hospitals, water supply stations, communications centers and other vital institutions,” according to SANA, citing the ministry.
Syria will continue to rationize oil supplies until “the return to normal navigation of the Suez Canal, which can take an unknown time,” she added.
The Ever Date, a huge ship almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall, crashed into the Egyptian Channel on Tuesday after being caught in 40-knot winds and a sandstorm. Authorities are also investigating possible human or technical errors.
The blockage, in one of the busiest and most important waterways in the world, could have a major impact on already extensive global supply chains, with disruptions intensifying with each passing day.
A team of expert rescuers from the Dutch company SMIT Salvage and the Japanese company Nippon Salvage – who have worked on several profile operations in the past – has been called in to help Suez Canal Authoriity re-float the ship, charter company Evergreen Marine said in a communiqué.
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, SCA President Osama Rabie gave details about the rescue operation, which he described as “technically difficult” and “involving many factors”.
“We are facing a difficult and complicated situation, we are working in rocky soil, the tides are very high, in addition to the huge size of the ship and the number of containers that make it difficult,” he said. “We can’t set a specific date for the ship to float, it depends on the ship’s response.”
About 9,000 tons of ballast water were removed from the ship, Rabie said, with dredging taking place during the ebb tide, while 14 tugs operated during the ebb tide. Rescue crews were able to temporarily restart the rudder and propellers Friday night before the low tide stopped its efforts, he said.
Two additional tugs are expected to arrive by Sunday to help with the floating efforts, according to the ship’s technical manager, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement.
If efforts to dismantle the ship using dredging and tugs fail, the next step could be to ease the ship’s cargo by removing the containers, a time-consuming and arduous process that we “hope” they should not resort to, Rabie said.
Rabie said the reasons behind the accident remain unclear. “There are many factors or reasons, the fast winds and the sandstorm could have been a reason, but not the main reason – it could have been a technical mistake or a human error,” he said. “There will be further investigations.”
Meanwhile, billions of dollars worth of vital cargo and sensitive products are left over on hundreds of ships whose path is blocked. About a dozen of them carry animals.
The EU director of the NGO Animals International, Gabriel Paun, warned that thousands of animals transported on ships – mostly Romanian – could risk death if the situation is not resolved in the coming days.
CNN’s Magdy Samaan reported from Cairo and Mohammed Tawfeeq from Baghdad, while Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN’s Mostafa Salem contributed to the report.