Giant vessel blocking Suez Canal freed, logjam of 450 ships to be cleared

Breakthrough in rescue attempt came after diggers removed 27,000 cubic meters of sand, going deep into the banks of the Suez Canal.

The giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal has been at least partially refloated, the first step toward getting one of the world’s most important trade arteries moving again.

The Ever Given was successfully refloated at about 4:30 a.m. local time in Egypt and the vessel is currently being secured, maritime services provider Inchcape Shipping Services said in an email. It followed a new attempt to dislodge the ship involving 10 tug boats, according to the Suez Canal Authority.

There was no immediate clarity on the crucial question of when traffic in the canal will restart. The ship has a damaged hull and it’s not clear how soon it will be able to clear the way for other vessels to pass.

Ever Given--which is longer than the canal is wide and was wedged across the waterway--has been stuck since Tuesday, causing a backlog of hundreds of ships and snarling global supply lines that were already under pressure. Salvage teams used tugs and dredgers to extract the ship’s bow from the sandy bank where it was lodged at least five meters in.

Once the vessel has been cleared, authorities will work to allow traffic to resume through the canal that’s a conduit for about 12% of world trade. At last count, 450 vessels were stuck, waiting or headed to the waterway. Others have diverted to the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.

The Suez Canal Authority released footage on Sunday showing workers fighting to free the #EverGiven by removing part of the canal's bank.
 

Shipping experts still 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.

“The dominoes have been toppled,” Lars Jensen, chief executive of SeaIntelligence Consulting in Copenhagen, wrote on social media over the weekend. “The delays and re-routing which have already happened will cause ripple effects on both vessels and empty equipment which will be felt for several months.”

Companies from Ikea to Caterpillar Inc. have been affected by the snarl-up and thousands of live animals are stuck on ships in the area. Consumer goods, industrial inputs, and commodities from oil to coffee are caught up in the jam, with Asian exporters and European importers affected most directly.

A rough estimate shows the blockage is costing about $400 million an hour, based on calculations from Lloyd’s List that suggest westbound traffic is worth around $5.1 billion a day and eastbound traffic is approximately $4.5 billion.

The accident--which happened as the giant vessel tried to navigate the canal with high winds and poor visibility--is another reminder of the fragility of global supply chains that have already been tested by the pandemic. The container industry was already suffering a supply crunch for the truck-size boxes that are now crucial to trade -- and operating at full capacity.

The investigation into what went wrong as the Ever Given tried to navigate the narrow waterway continues, as well as the untangling of liabilities and insurance claims

(With assistance from Brendan Murray, Alex Longley, Abdel Latif Wahba and Dan Murtaugh.)