Photographer: Kristian Helgesen / Bloomberg
Photographer: Kristian Helgesen / Bloomberg
A giant container ship has stalled in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic in both directions on one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes, vital for moving oil to liquefied natural gas.
The 400-meter-long container ship Ever Give hull became a canal on Tuesday, causing at least 100 ships to cross the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, according to ship brokers and cartographic data compiled by Bloomberg.
Ever Date, which was transporting goods from China to Rotterdam, crashed Tuesday morning, local time, and tugs are trying to re-float the ship, Leth Agencies, a major Suez Canal crossing service provider, said in a statement customers.
About 42 ships, either in the convoy to the north or arriving to transit the canal to the north, are now waiting for the grounded ship to be re-floated, according to Leth agencies. About 64 ships traveling south were also affected.
“There was a grounding incident” in the Suez Canal, said Alok Roy, director of the BSM Hong Kong fleet, director of the Ever given ship. No injuries or pollution were reported, he said.
The Taiwan-based ship’s operator, Evergreen Group, was unable to respond immediately to a request for comment.
The ship’s tracking data showed that Ever Date is still in the same position as at about 2 a.m. Wednesday in Cairo. A Suez Canal Authority spokesman could not be reached for comment after local time at midnight.
The Suez Canal is one of the busiest waterways in the world, used by oil tankers transporting oil from the Middle East to Europe and North America.
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