World News – UK – The cost of blocking the Suez Canal

A huge container ship that has been trapped in the Suez Canal since Tuesday has been partially freed from the coast, the Suez Canal Authority said

It has been added that further efforts to move the boat will resume later on Monday and there is now hope that traffic can resume along the canal within a few hours

The situation has worried and frustrated the global shipping industry

Ever Given is 400 m long and weighs 200000 tons with a maximum capacity of 20000 containers 18300 containers transported

The ship is operated by the Taiwanese transport company Evergreen Marine and is one of the largest container ships in the world

It was stranded Tuesday after running aground and settling sideways across the waterway. It was initially believed to be due to a gust of wind

Wind speed at the time was recorded at 40 knots, but the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) told reporters that wasn’t the only reason the ship was stranded

An investigation would be needed to determine if there were technical or human errors, the agency added

As of Sunday, 369 ships were waiting in a traffic jam to pass through the 193 km long canal on both sides of the blockade

There have now been more than 145 on Twitter200 social interactions with the hashtag #SuezBLOCKED and at least 133000 shares This emerges from a real-time analysis of the brand monitoring platform BrandMentions

Over the weekend, 14 tugs pulled and pushed the Ever Given at high tide to remove it and were able to move the ship “30 degrees left and right”

Then the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) issued a statement on Monday after several reports that the ship had been partially floated again that the Ever Given had been “successfully floated”

The SCA said it would resume maneuvers later Monday at high tide “to fully restore the ship’s direction so that it is positioned in the middle of the navigable waterway”

Richard Mead, editor-in-chief of the nautical magazine Lloyd’s List, told the BBC’s Today Program: “It is clear that the Suez Canal will reopen to traffic later today once a full inspection has been carried out”

“We’re looking at around 450 ships still waiting to cross the canal. It will be a lengthy process to clean up this residue,” he said

Around 12% of world trade, around one million barrels of oil and around 8% of liquefied natural gas flow through the canal every day

SCA Chairman Osama Rabie said Saturday that the channel’s revenue ranged from $ 14 million to $ 15 million (£ 109m) hits for each day of the blockade

Prior to the pandemic, trade via the Suez Canal contributed 2% of Egypt’s GDP, according to Moody’s

Regardless, data from Lloyd’s List showed the stranded ship held an estimated $ 9 billion a day Trade along the waterway That corresponds to 400 million USD and 33 million tons of freight per hour or $ 67m per minute

By and large, German insurer Allianz said on Friday that its analysis showed that a blockade could cost world trade between $ 6 billion and $ 10 billion a week and reduce annual trade growth by 0.2 to 04 percentage points

Shipping broker Braemar ACM told the Wall Street Journal that the cost of renting some ships to ship cargo to and from Asia and the Middle East increased 47% to $ 2m

Some ships were diverted to bypass the Suez Canal. That is around eight days for their entire voyage

The blockade of the Suez Canal affects not only the global shipping industry or the Egyptian economy – countless companies, from domestic transport companies to retailers, supermarkets and manufacturers, are also affected

The real damage and costs are difficult to assess until the ship is completely freed and trading resumes

British firms told the BBC on Friday that they were still waiting to find out when goods were expected to arrive

There have been concerns that if the Suez Canal blockade continues, some companies will have to pay to order more goods and air freight them, which will cost at least three times as much

The Ever Given has been blocking one of the world’s busiest trade routes for almost a week

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Suez Canal Blockade