{"id":116850,"date":"2021-04-02T10:58:18","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T02:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=116850"},"modified":"2021-04-02T10:58:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T02:58:20","slug":"egypt-must-upgrade-suez-canal-quickly-to-avoid-future-disruption-shipping-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=116850","title":{"rendered":"Egypt must upgrade Suez Canal quickly to avoid future disruption – shipping sources"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Ever Given giant container ship blocked the Suez Canal for six days<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAIRO, April 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Egypt\u2019s Suez Canal must move quickly to upgrade its technical infrastructure if it is to avoid future shipping disruption, shipping industry sources said, as the major trade route tries to bounce back from a costly six-day closure.

International supply chains were thrown into disarray on March 23 when the 400-metre-long container ship Ever Given ran aground in the canal, with specialist rescue teams taking almost a week to free her after extensive dredging and repeated tugging operations.

Egypt will get two new tugboats, one next week and one in August, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Osama Rabie said after the ship was finally freed, as well as taking the biggest dredger in the Middle East and arranging for a further five new Chinese tugboats.

But shipping industry sources said specialist equipment and associated procedures have long struggled to keep up with the ever increasing size of commercial vessels.

\u201cThe average size of most vessels has increased exponentially over the last 15 years. The ability to salvage these bigger ships has not,\u201d said Peter Townsend, a marine insurance industry veteran.

\u201cThe issue is getting containers off essentially a 20-storey high building at sea.\u201d

Michael Kingston, an international shipping specialist and an adviser to the United Nation\u2019s International Maritime Organization, flagged such problems in 2013, three years before the MSC Fabiola container ship ran aground, also blocking traffic for days.

\u201cThe obvious way to lighten a vessel … is to take the containers off. They had no way of doing it. No equipment was readily available,\u201d he said of the Ever Given incident.

The SCA says the canal can safely take vessels of the Ever Given\u2019s size – with a maximum capacity of 20,000 TEU (20-foot containers) – even in rough weather.

As well as bigger tugboats, dredgers and offloaders, stricter guidelines on how ships transit the canal are needed, the industry sources said. Those could include using tugs to assist large vessels, or only permitting transit during daylight hours.

\u201cOf course, there are many lessons learned from the (Ever Given) incident. Of course we have the capabilities,\u201d the SCA\u2019s Rabie said.

Visiting the canal this week, Egypt\u2019s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said: \u201cWe have to give a strong message to the world that the Suez Canal … can transport world trade at this rate or more.\u201d

It was not clear yet if the Canal would opt to extend a second channel south of the one that Egypt opened in 2015 at a cost of $8 billion along a 70-km portion of the waterway. Such an extension would allow traffic to continue flowing even if a ship were grounded.

\u201cAn expansion for the southern section of the canal can be under consideration,\u201d said Sisi. \u201cIt\u2019s up to the technical people. We don\u2019t want to take measures just due to extraordinary situations.\u201d — NNN-AGENCIES
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The Ever Given giant container ship blocked the Suez Canal for six days CAIRO, April 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Egypt\u2019s Suez Canal must move quickly to upgrade its technical infrastructure if it is to avoid future shipping disruption, shipping industry sources said, as the major trade route tries to bounce back from a costly six-day closure. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":116852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116850"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/116852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}