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29-03-2021
CAIRO: The giant container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week was fully floated on Monday and traffic in the waterway resumed.
According to witnesses, the Ever Given container ship was moving and a shipping tracker and Egyptian TV showed it positioned in the centre of the canal.
Helped by the peak of high tide, a flotilla of tugboats managed to wrench the bulbous bow of the skyscraper-sized vessel from the canal’s sandy bank.
Earlier in the day, Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said the Ever Given container ship was partially refloated and turned in the “right direction”.
The news comes a week after the container ship ran aground in high winds, blocking one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
Ship to be inspected for seaworthiness after refloat
Evergreen Line said the Ever Given container ship would be inspected for seaworthiness after being dislodged from a southern section of the Suez Canal where it had been blocking traffic for nearly a week.
Taiwan listed Evergreen, which is leasing the ship, said decisions regarding the vessel’s cargo would be made after the inspection and that it would coordinate with the ship’s owner after investigation reports were completed.
Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated
The giant container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week was fully floated on Monday and traffic in the waterway would resume, the canal authority said in a statement.
The ship moving and a shipping tracker and Egyptian TV showed it positioned in the centre of the canal.
“Admiral Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, has announced the resumption of shipping traffic in the Suez Canal,” the SCA said in a statement, shortly after shipping sites had showed it to have once more diagonally blocked the waterway.
Copper slides amid Suez Canal jam
Copper prices slipped as worries about higher freight costs receded after salvage crews managed to move a container ship blocking the Suez Canal and a higher dollar reinforced negative sentiment.
Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange traded down 0.3 percent to $8,937 a tonne in official rings. Prices are down seven percent since hitting 9-1/2-year highs of $9,617 last month.
Global reinsurers stare at massive losses from Suez Canal blockage, Fitch says
The blocking of the Suez Canal by one of the world’s largest container ships is likely to result in losses worth hundreds of millions of euros for the reinsurance industry, Fitch Ratings said, even as rescue teams were successful in partially refloating the vessel on Monday.
The 400-metre (430-yard) long Ever Given got wedged diagonally across the canal in high winds early last Tuesday, blocking the path for hundreds of vessels waiting to transit the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
This event will reduce global reinsurers’ earnings but should not materially affect their credit profiles, while prices for marine reinsurance will rise further, the credit rating agency said.
Challenge still ahead’ to free Suez ship: salvage firm
The head of a Dutch salvage firm helping shift a container ship from the Suez Canal warned that “the challenge is still ahead” despite some success in moving it, as the bow remains stuck.
“The good news is that the stern is free but in our view that was the easier 
part. The challenge is still ahead, because you really have to slide the ship, with the weight it is carrying,” Boskalis chief executive Peter Berdowski told Dutch public radio.
3.5 days to clear Suez tailback once ship refloated: Egypt canal chief
Once the container ship blocking the Suez Canal is refloated it will take three and a half days to clear a traffic jam of hundreds of vessels, Egyptian authorities.
“The canal will be functioning 24 hours per day immediately after the ship has been refloated,” Suez Canal Authority chief Osama Rabie told Egyptian TV. It will then take “around three and a half days” to clear the backlog, he said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
