"Ever Given" Blocks Suez, Billions In Trade Lost
We have all seen the memes, but do you really know what happened in the Suez Canal two weeks ago? When the 1,312-foot Ever Given ran aground on March 23, it shut down one of the world's busiest waterways, creating a traffic jam of over 300 ships awaiting entrance to the Suez Canal. The ships were stranded at the man-made canal that connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea for six days, the time it took for salvage efforts to finally free the ship’s bow from the canal’s east bank. It is estimated that $60 billion in global trade was lost over the course of the debacle. The quarter-mile-long cargo ship initially became stuck when high winds and a dust storm made steering impossible. The Japanese firm that owns the Ever Given, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., is suing Evergreen Marine, the Taiwanese operator of the ship, in order to limit liability. The chairman of the Suez Canal authority, Osama Rabie, reported that the grounding of the Ever Given cost the SCA and the Egyptian government $1 billion, and an investigation of the incident will likely involve data analysis of the ship’s black boxes. This investigation will help determine the full cause of the grounding, but until it is complete the Ever Given will remain docked in a canal holding lake, and her cargo will remain onboard for up to a year. This year’s grounding is the first such incident in the Suez Canal since the Russian oil tanker Tropic Brilliance ran aground for three days in 2004.
By: Miles Kresic
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