The enormous container ship blocking the Suez Canal for nearly every week has been turned 80 percent within the right direction, Egypt's Suez Canal Authority announced Monday, raising hopes the vital waterway could soon be clear.
"The position of the ship has been reorientated 80 percent within the right direction. The stern... went to 102 meters (335 feet) of the shore," compared to its position four meters from the shore previously, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chief Osama Rabie during a statement.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hailed the event in his first public comments on Monday's operations. “By returning matters to their natural course, with Egyptian hands, the entire world is often assured of the trail of its goods and wishes that are carried through this navigational artery," Sisi said on his official social media pages.
Egypt is losing some $12-14 million in revenue from the canal for every day it's closed, consistent with SCA officials.
Although the event marked the vessel's most vital movement since getting stuck last Tuesday, the salvage crew urged caution as obstacles loomed.
“Don’t cheer convenient,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, that salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, told Dutch NPO Radio 1. the most important challenge remained at the front of the ship, where workers would struggle to haul the fully laden 220,000-ton vessel over the clay of the canal bank, Berdowski noted.
Once the ship is fully afloat, it'll take around three-and-a-half days to clear the holdup of ships, SCA chief Rabie told Egyptian TV.
Backlogs could take weeks, months to clear
But the shipping group Maersk said the disruptions within the global shipping industry caused by Ever Given’s stranding could take weeks and possibly months to clear.
"Even when this canal gets reopened, this ripple effects on global capacity and facilities are significant," the world's largest container company said in an advisory statement for patrons published on Monday.
"Assessing the present backlog of vessels, it could take six days or more for the entire queue to pass," it said.
Satellite data of MarineTraffic.com showed that the ship’s bulbous bow, once caught deep within the canal's eastern bank, had been partly wrested from the shore — although it remained stuck at the canal's edge. Tracking data shows the ship's stern has swung around and is now within the center of the waterway.
An official at Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the corporate that owns the Ever Given, confirmed the vessel's bow had moved slightly but warned rock bottom of the ship was still touching the seafloor. The official spoke to the Associated continue condition of anonymity thanks to the sensitivity of the difficulty.
Full moon spring tide aids efforts
The partial refloating of the vessel came after intensive efforts to push and pull the vessel with 10 tugboats when the complete moon brought spring tide.
The MV Ever Given, longer than four football fields, was wedged diagonally across the Suez Canal since early last week, towering over nearby palm trees and strangling world supply chains.
The crisis forced companies to settle on between waiting or rerouting vessels around Africa, which adds an enormous fuel bill, 9,000 kilometers (5,500 miles) and over every week or visit the trip between Asia and Europe.
A canal official, who also requested anonymity, told AFP that the team on the bottom had started technical checks, and were reassured that the ship's motor was working.
Overnight, several dredgers had toiled to vacuum up 27,000 cubic meters of sand and dirt around the ship. Another powerful tugboat, the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, received the scene to hitch the work Monday, and therefore the flotilla would now focus its efforts on the front of the ship, said Berdowski.
Hundreds of ships waiting to transit
The Ever Given became jammed across a southern section of the canal in high winds, halting shipping traffic on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
At least 369 vessels were waiting to transit the canal, including dozens of container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers, and liquefied gas (LNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vessels, Rabie told Egypt's Extra News on Sunday.
About 15 percent of world shipping traffic transits the Suez Canal, which may be a key source of foreign currency revenue for Egypt. the present stoppage has been costing the canal between $14 to $15 million each day.
Shipping prices for oil product trucks nearly folded after the ship became stranded, and therefore the blockage disrupted global supply chains, threatening costly delays for companies already handling Covid-19 restrictions.
Some ship managers last week decided to reroute their cargoes around the Cape of excellent Hope, adding about a fortnight to journeys and additional fuel costs.
A note from A.P. Moeller Maersk seen by Reuters said it had thus far redirected 15 vessels around the Cape after calculating that the journey would be adequate to the present delay of sailing to Suez and queuing.
The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) has said it can accelerate convoys through the canal once the Ever Given is freed for traffic.
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