THE Suez Canal has resumed operations after
the 20,388 TEU Ever Given was re-floated aided by the high spring
tide allowing salvors to free the entire ship and unblock the waterway after a
week of closure.
According to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA,
the vessel is to be towed to the Bitter Lakes area for technical inspections,
opening up the waterway for the resumption of traffic.
Taiwan's Evergreen Line confirmed in a statement that
"the chartered vessel will be repositioned to the Great Bitter Lake in the
Canal for an inspection of its seaworthiness. The outcome of that inspection
will determine whether the ship can resume its scheduled service. Once the
inspection is finalised, decisions will be made regarding arrangements for
cargo currently on board".
The Taiwanese shipping line also said that it will
coordinate with the shipowner to deal with subsequent matters after the
shipowner and other concerned parties complete investigation reports into the
incident.
However, shippers and forwarders on either side of
the canal face weeks of potential supply chain disruption - according
to Leth Agencies, there are 357 vessels of all types waiting to transit Suez,
and estimates vary as to how long the backlog of vessels could take to clear,
reports UK's The Loadstar.
According to a Maersk customer advisory this morning, the
line and its 2M partner, MSC, have three vessels stuck in the canal system and
another 30 waiting to enter and has rerouted 15 ships round the Cape of Good
Hope.
Orient Overseas Container Line said in a statement that
seven vessels have been re-directed via the Cape, adding that it will try and
minimise delays to cargo delivery.
According to data from SeaIntelligence Consulting,
Asia-North Europe vessels routed via the Cape need an extra 14.4 days to
complete a round trip, while Asia-Mediterranean vessels take an extra 26.8
days.
"All in all, in order to re-route the cargo around
Africa - or through Panama in some cases for the Asia-US east coast - will
absorb an amount of carrying capacity, equal to 6 per cent of the globally
available capacity - equal to 1.48 million TEU of capacity, the same as 74
ultra-large 20,000 TEU container vessels," said SeaIntelligence
chief executive Alan Murphy.
"It is evident that such an amount of capacity
absorption will have a global impact and lead to severe capacity shortages. It
will impact all tradelanes, as carriers will seek to cascade vessels to locations
where they find they have the greatest need.
"In the short term, it is not possible to build more
vessels to solve the problem - the only viable option would be to speed up the
vessels. This can partially alleviate the problem, but far from solve it. In
this case, increasing speed from 17 to 20 knots would reduce the impact on the
global fleet from 6 per cent to 5.2 per cent.
"Going full throttle at 22 knots would still only
reduce the impact to 4.8 per cent," he added.
Source : HKSG / Photo : gCaptain.
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