The Suez Canal was blocked for six days in March 2021 after the accidental grounding of Ever Given, a Golden-class container ship. On the morning of 23 March, the 400-metre-long (1,300 ft) vessel (sailing from Malaysia to the Netherlands) was buffeted by strong winds that caused it to collide with the canal bank and become wedged sideways across the waterway. Egyptian authorities said "there may have been technical or human errors" also involved. The obstruction was south of the section of the canal that has two channels, so there was no way for other ships to bypass Ever Given. The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) engaged Boskalis through its subsidiary SMIT Salvage to manage marine salvage operations.
The canal is one of the world's busiest
trade routes, and the obstruction had a significant impact on trade between
Europe and Asia and the Middle East. On 28 March, at least 369 ships were
queuing to pass through the canal. This prevented $9.6 billion worth of trade. On 29 March, Ever Given was
partially re-floated and moved by about 80 per cent in the correct direction, although
the "bow remained stuck". The
ship was finally freed at 15:05 EGY (13:05 UTC), and started moving, under tow,
towards the Great Bitter Lake, for technical inspection. The canal was checked for damage, and the SCA
allowed shipping to resume from 19:00 EGY (17:00 UTC).
Background of the Incident
The Suez Canal, one of the world's most
important trading routes, was opened in 1869.
By 2021 approximately fifty ships per day travelled through the canal,
about 12% of total global trade at the time.
For much of its length, however, the canal is not wide enough to allow
traffic to travel in both directions at once; convoys of ships must take turns
transiting these segments of the waterway. An expansion project is underway,
but significant portions of the canal remain single-lane.
Ever Given was laid
down on 25 December 2015, launched 9 May 2018, and completed 25 September 2018,
replacing an earlier ship of the same name.
Shoei Kisen Kaisha, a subsidiary of Japan's Imabari Shipbuilding, owns
the ship. The operator is the Taiwan-based company Evergreen Marine and the
vessel is managed by Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement. The vessel is registered in Panama. The ship's owners, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, have
liability coverage for $3.1 billion. Evergreen's
Protection and Indemnity (third party) liabilities insurance coverage is
provided by mutual UK P&I Club. The
ship is insured in the Japanese market. Insurance
industry sources say the ship's owners could be facing insurance claims from
the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) for loss of revenue and other ships whose
passage has been impeded. Container ships of this size are typically insured
for hull and machinery damage to an amount totalling between $100 and $140 million.
Bill Kavanagh, a National Maritime
College of Ireland lecturer and former captain, has described sailing through
the Suez Canal as "a very complex and high risk operation". Wind
gusts will cause the container areas of vessels to "act like a sail"
and thus affect the course of the ship. The momentum of a heavy ship, such
as Ever Given, is difficult to counteract if blown off course.
The government of Egypt requires ships
traversing the canal to be boarded by an Egyptian "Suez crew",
including one or more official maritime pilots from Egypt's SCA who command the
ship, taking over from the regular crew and the captain. There were two
Egyptian SCA pilots on board at the time of the accident.
March 23, 2021 Grounding
On 23 March 2021, at 07:40 EGY (05:40 UTC), Ever
Given was travelling through the Suez Canal, when it was caught in a
sandstorm. The strong winds, which reached 40 kn (74 km/h;
46 mph), resulted in the "loss of the ability to steer the
ship," causing the hull to deviate.
The ship then ran aground at the 151 km (82 nmi) mark
(measured from Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea; 10 km (5.4 nmi)
from Suez Port on the Gulf of Suez), and turned sideways, unable to free
itself, blocking the canal on both sides.
The crew consisting entirely of Indian nationals was accounted for and
no injuries were reported. At the time
of the incident, the ship was travelling from Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia, to the
Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands. It was
fifth in a northbound convoy, with fifteen vessels behind it when it ran
aground near the village of Manshiyet Rugola.
According to an analysis of data from
ship tracking websites by Evert Lataire, head of maritime technology division
at the University of Ghent, the bank effect, which may cause the stern of a ship
to swing toward the near bank when operating in constricted waterway, may have
contributed to the grounding, along with the lateral forces of westerly winds
pushing sideways against the northbound ship. Since most of the focus of modern
ship design is directed towards efficiency and stability at sea, the effects of
hydrodynamics in shallow waters, especially in light of the rapidly growing
size of ships in the past decade, remain somewhat obscure and in need of
further study.
Over 300 vessels at both ends of the
canal were obstructed by Ever Given, including five other container
ships of similar size. These included 41
bulk carriers and 24 crude oil tankers. The
affected vessels represented roughly 16.9 million tonnes (37 billion
pounds) of deadweight. Some docked at
ports and anchorages in the area, while many remained in place. The Ever
Given's sister ship, Ever Greet, was affected by the disruption, as
were two Russian Navy vessels: Steregushchiy-class corvette Stoikiy and
Altay-class oiler Kola. These two vessels, believed to have been
the only military vessels affected by the blockage, were conducting naval
exercises in the area at the time. Kola had been involved in a
minor collision with bulk carrier Ark Royal earlier that day;
the two were anchored roughly 11 km (5.9 nmi) away from each other
for the duration of the incident.
Response by the Suez Canal Authority
In the immediate aftermath of the
grounding, the Suez Canal Authority engaged the Dutch company Royal Boskalis
Westminster through its subsidiary SMIT Salvage to manage marine salvage operations.
Their team of experts worked in close collaboration with the Canal Authority,
calculating the timing and direction of efforts, and coordinating a team of
Egyptian, Dutch, and Japanese workers. Tugs
were needed to apply force to move the ship, by towing or pushing, and suction
dredgers to remove sand and silt from under the bow and stern of the ship. High
capacity pumps were to reduce or redistribute the weight of fuel oil and water
ballast on the ship. If this was insufficient to refloat the ship, large floating
cranes could be brought in to remove containers, but this would be a slow and
difficult operation, with care needed to maintain the stability of the ship and
avoid it breaking up. Some officials
suggested the possibility of using heavy lift helicopters, but none are capable
of lifting a fully laden 40-foot container.
As a first step, vessels were moved from
behind Ever Given to make room for the refloating operation.
Fuel and nine thousand tonnes of ballast water were removed from the ship to
help lighten it as heavy machinery, including an excavator, began work to dig
the bow out. By 25 March, eight tugboats
were assisting in the attempt to pull it free.
Peter Berdowski, Chief Executive of Boskalis, stated on 25 March that
such an operation "can take days to weeks".
On 25 March, the SCA suspended
navigation through the Suez Canal until Ever Given could be
refloated. The same day, Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's advisor on seaports stated that he expected
the canal to be cleared in "48–72 hours, maximum". The following day, the Suez Canal Authority
said that its dredging operations were about 87 per cent complete.
On 26 March, the SCA accepted an offer
made by a United States Navy assessment team of dredging experts to assist in
efforts to remove the ship.
On 27 March, the SCA said that 14
tugboats were trying to take advantage of that day's high tide and that more
would arrive the following day if the latest attempt failed. Yukito Higaki,
president of Shoei Kisen Kaisha, reported that the ship did not appear to be
damaged, saying "The ship is not taking water. Once it refloats, it should
be able to operate." There was no
timeline of when the canal might be reopened. However, by 5:00 pm GMT, according
to Egypt Today, the ship had moved by 30 meters (100 feet) towards the north.
Delays in shipping could persist after Ever Given is freed from its
current predicament, as vessels may face busy ports and additional delays
before offloading. As of 27 March, more than 300 ships were delayed at both
ends and in the middle of the canal, with others still approaching and others
having altered their paths.
Addressing a press conference, Osama
Rabie, SCA chairman, said that weather conditions were "not the main
reasons" for the ship's grounding, adding that "there may have been
technical or human errors," and that all factors would be looked into in
the investigation on the incident.
On 28 March, efforts to dislodge the
ship allowed for some movement of the ship's stern and its rudder at high tide,
and SCA chairman Rabie said that water has been running under the ship again,
and that "at any time the ship could slide and move from the spot it is
in", additionally noting he hoped it would not be necessary to remove some
of the 18,300 containers on board the ship, despite strong tides and winds
complicating recovery efforts. This came
as the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, ordered preliminary preparations
be made for lightening the ship's cargo.
The seagoing tug Alp Guard, with a bollard pull of 285
tonnes, arrived that morning, almost doubling the towing capacity of the tugs.
The "complete disconnect of ship
size development from developments in the actual economy" (OECD report,
2015), and the corresponding limitations of existing infrastructure to handle
them – a process evident in the Suez, where expansion work on the northern end
of the canal has been ongoing – led to the incident being described by Michael
Safi in The Guardian as a "worst-case scenario that many saw
coming". Events during the several
days the canal was blocked highlighted the difficulties of saving larger ships,
which requires more time and more equipment. If Ever Given had required
intervention of floating cranes to remove some containers (assuming crane ships
of sufficient capacity would have been available within any realistic
time-frame), the process would have required larger equipment working for
longer, and would have been likely to prolong the blockage by "days, even
weeks".
On 29 March, the stern of Ever Given was
refloated at 04.30 local time (02:30 UTC), and the seagoing tug Carlo Magno arrived,
giving a further large increase in towing capacity. Ballast was adjusted, and
towing timed to make maximum use of the ebbing tidal flow. At 15:05 local time
(13:05 UTC) the ship was pulled free, following the king tide of a supermoon. It took 14 tug boats at high tide to dislodge
the 224,000-ton vessel.
Satellite data showed that the ship's
bow had been partly moved from the shore, although it remained stuck at the
edge of the canal. The ship's stern had swung around and was in the middle of
the waterway. The vessel was finally
freed and moving again as of 15:05 local time, and was towed to the Great
Bitter Lake for inspection. The canal
authority informed shipping agencies that the canal was to reopen for shipping
from 19:00 local time (17:00 UTC), after a search of the bottom and soil of the
Suez Canal had found it was sound and had no issues. By the time traffic through the Suez Canal
resumed, more than 400 ships were waiting: approximately 200 in the Red Sea,
under 200 in the Mediterranean Sea; and around 50 in the Bitter Lakes.
Global Economic Impact
Maritime and logistics experts warned
that the incident will likely result in shipping delays of everyday items for
customers around the world. Maritime
historian Sal Mercogliano told the Associated Press: "Every day the canal
is closed… container ships and tankers are not delivering food, fuel and
manufactured goods to Europe and goods are not being exported from Europe to
the Far East." Lloyd's List estimates
the value of the goods delayed each hour at US$ 400 million, and that every day
it takes to clear the obstruction will disrupt an additional US$9 billion
worth of goods. Rabie estimated that
Egypt loses $12–14 million per day due to the closure.
Michael Lynch, president of Strategic
Energy and Economic Research, attributed a rise in oil prices to "people
buying in after recent declines in oil prices, with the Suez closing the
trigger factor." James Williams, energy economist at WTRG Economics, said
that in light of existing stocks "a few days of slowdown in [oil] delivery
is not critical to the market." On
the contrary, the oil prices had plummeted after the Suez Canal became
unblocked on 29 March 2021, as a result of delayed supply of oil from other
cargo ships.
The event had delayed goods, which only
impacted industries with existing shortages, such as with semiconductors,
thereby influencing markets already at risk of collapsing. To mitigate
shortages of goods in the long term, future shipments could be ordered earlier
than normal until the difference has been made up. However, a consultant at another firm noted
that even a short-term disruption at the Suez Canal would have a domino effect for
several months along the supply chain. Some
freight forwarders noted that demand for alternative means of transportation
was expected to rise within the next few weeks on Europe to Asia routes, as a
consequence of shippers seeking to avoid the disruption and uncertainty caused
by the blockage of the canal.
Concern was raised about livestock
transported through the route, with 130,000 sheep being transported to Romania alone;
Gabi Paun of Animals International stated "Every hour counts for the sheep
and the fatality rate will only grow ... even if the law was respected and the
ships were carrying 25% more food ... it would nonetheless have been finished
by now". The European Commission has previously discovered many ships used
for transporting animals are not fit for that purpose, as well as a lack of oversight
on the transport of animals among several member states. As a response to the concerns surrounding
live exports from said incident, Romania had temporarily suspended all live
exports.
The default alternative route for
maritime traffic between Asia and Europe is to go around Africa via the Cape of
Good Hope, a trip which can add up to two weeks to journey time, with this
alternative having already been taken by some ships as of 26 March. Russia has used this incident to promote its Arctic
shipping routes as a shorter alternative to carrying goods around Africa.
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