Suez Canal chaos: Best shot at freeing container ship may not come until March 29

Rescue efforts for the 400-meter long and 224,000-tonne supertanker that bottlenecked one of the world’s key global maritime trade lanes Suez Canal in Egypt have been suspended. The best shot at getting the fully laden Panama-flagged MV Ever Given operated containership will not come until Monday, a letter dispatched by GAC Egypt SCT Coordinating Office to the China Shipowners’ Association, accessed by Lloyd’s stated. 

Given that the giant containership is lodged in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and has disrupted oil tankers and cargo traffic of the world, global oil prices were sent on a wild rage hitting $60-per-barrel level on Wednesday, a spike that raises serious concerns about how the mishap will cut the oil supply chain.

According to the nautical tracking service VesselFinder’s data, the gigantic vessel wedged lengthways after drawing a strange route on the waters of the red sea resemblant of profane drawings ahead of running aground. Although, GAC, global shipping, and logistics company stated that the vessel suffered "a blackout while transiting in a northerly direction” and overturned due to a ‘gush of high winds’. 

Shortly after sailing the strange route, the hull of the Eiffel tower sized Ever Given was stuck in the “most awkward way possible,” as researcher John Scott-Railton described, causing an intercontinental traffic jam, grid locking ships loaded with Persian Gulf oil and natural gas shipments to Europe and North America and hampering what is estimated a 27 percent of traffic, as calculated last year. 

[Image Credit: AP]

Could 'partially' afloat it

Several Egyptian vessels have been unsuccessful in freeing the Ever Given ship container from the narrowest lane that it blocked, although rescue teams with tugboats were able to partially afloat it. “After all day trying to refloat the mega container ship ‘Ever Given’, in the Suez Canal, there is a steady log jam of ships waiting in the Mediterranean & Red Sea and in the canal itself,” a sea traffic-follower wrote in an update on Twitter. Suez Canal Authority, meanwhile, fear that the backlog caused by stranded Taiwan vessel en route to Amsterdam could take weeks as marine traffic on both sides remains disrupted. About 51 ships transit between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea per day are impacted. 

(Image Credit: Twitter/@UrosZx)