For approximately three days now, a heavy vessel named MV Ever Given operated by Evergreen Shipping Company has been stuck on the Egypt Seuz Canal, blocking hundreds of other ships sailing from Asia to Europe.
The implications of this are huge on a global commerce scale as the shipping route, Suez Canal, is where 10% of global trade pass through. The Suez Canal is one of the busiest shipping rout in the world.
The ship is gigantic, and is longer than the Eiffel Tower at 1,300 feet long and just as heavy, with an approximate weight of 200,000 tonnes.
Experts have estimated that it’ll take at least one week to dislodge the ship that’s wedged between the Suez Canal and this could cause tens of billions of dollars worths of goods, both raw and final goods, to be delayed in the fast developing traffic jam.
Already, over 150 ships have been held up in traffic jam on the North of the Suez Canal as a result of the blockade caused by the MV Ever Given stuck between the Suez Canal, and the numbers would keep growing.
The Suez Canal is the shortest shipping route between Asia and Europe and has an economic impact of over $3.5 billion daily.
According to trade analysts, the vessel is preventing trade worth $400 million per hour from going through. This means goods, including oil and everything from pharmaceutical products to metals worth $9.6 billion per day are held up.
An alternative that could be considered would be for the other ships to go through the south of Africa and make a 5,000km round trip around the continent of Africa to avoid the Suez Canal, which would take an extra week to accomplish.
The solution…
Egypt has already commenced dredging the canal to free the stuck ultra-large Ever Given vessel with tugboats, dredging machines and cranes.
The sand around the canal is also being dug out to make the water deeper to allow movement for the stuck ship.
Experts are suggesting that some of the ships oils, ballasts and cargoes may have to be offloaded to make the ship lighter and free it for movement. Of course, this is a logistics nightmare on its own.
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