The enormous container ship blocking the Suez Canal for almost a week has been turned 80 percent in 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 in the right direction. The stern... moved to 102 metres (335 feet) from the shore," compared to its position four metres from the shore previously, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chief Osama Rabie in a statement.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hailed the development in his first public comments on Monday's operations. “By restoring matters to their normal course, with Egyptian hands, the whole world can be assured of the path of its goods and needs 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 each day it is closed, according to SCA officials.
Although the development marked the vessel's most significant movement since getting stuck last Tuesday, the salvage crew urged caution as obstacles loomed.
“Don’t cheer too soon,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, told Dutch NPO Radio 1. The biggest 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 will take around three-and-a-half days to clear the traffic jam of ships, SCA chief Rabie told Egyptian TV.
Backlogs could take weeks, months to clear
But the shipping group Maersk said the disruptions in the global shipping industry caused by the Ever Given’s stranding could take weeks and possibly months to clear.
"Even when the canal gets reopened, the ripple effects on global capacity and equipment are significant," the world's largest container shipping company said in an advisory statement for customers published on Monday.
"Assessing the current backlog of vessels, it could take six days or more for the complete queue to pass," it said.
Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed that the ship’s bulbous bow, once lodged deep in 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 in the the middle of the waterway.
An official at Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns the Ever Given, confirmed the vessel's bow had moved slightly, but warned the bottom of the ship was still touching the seafloor. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
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 full 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 choose between waiting or rerouting vessels around Africa, which adds a huge fuel bill, 9,000 kilometres (5,500 miles) and over a week of travel to the trip between Asia and Europe.
A canal official, who also requested anonymity, told AFP that the team on the ground 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 mud around the ship. Another powerful tugboat, the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, arrived at the scene to join the work Monday, and 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 natural 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 is a key source of foreign currency revenue for Egypt. The current stoppage has been costing the canal between $14 to $15 million a day.
Shipping rates for oil product tankers nearly doubled after the ship became stranded, and the blockage disrupted global supply chains, threatening costly delays for companies already dealing with Covid-19 restrictions.
Some ship managers last week decided to reroute their cargoes around the Cape of Good Hope, adding about two weeks to journeys and extra fuel costs.
A note from A.P. Moeller Maersk seen by Reuters said it had so far redirected 15 vessels around the Cape after calculating that the journey would be equal to the current 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.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
