THE salvage firm hired to free the Ever Given box ship from
the banks of the Suez Canal says the refloating of the 20,000 TEU vessel to
allow other vessels to transit the waterway has been successful and that the
backlog of ships could potentially be cleared by the end of the week, reports
IHS Media.
The refloating will allow ocean carriers to start moving
vessels that are already at anchorage at the northern and southern ends of the
canal to start moving and halt further diversions along the African cape.
However, the incident means that schedule reliability will
remain out of whack for weeks until all the vessels affected by the blockage
can resume regular transits.
Marine engineering and project firm Boskalis said that its
team from subsidiary Smit Salvage and the Suez Canal Authority refloated the
ship at about 3 pm local time on Tuesday.
Boskalis said the refloating effort required the deployment
of two "powerful seagoing tugs" in addition to the 11 tugs operated
by the Suez Canal Authority. Along with the tugs, some 103,000 square feet of
sand was removed.
Boskalis CEO Peter Berdowski said
in a statement: "I am excited to announce that our team of experts,
working in close collaboration with the Suez Canal Authority, successfully
refloated the Ever Given, thereby making free passage through the Suez Canal
possible again."
Leth Agencies, the
Suez's main shipping agency, also confirmed that the Evergreen-operated ship is
now under tow to an anchorage at a midpoint in the canal for further
inspection.
Evergreen Marine, the ship's operator, said once the
inspection has been completed, it will determine whether the Ever Given can
resume its scheduled service to Rotterdam, where it was expected to arrive on
March 31, according to project44's Ocean Insights data.
Evergreen said in a statement: "We are most grateful
to the Suez Canal Authority and all the concerned parties for their assistance
and support through this difficult and unfortunate situation.
"We would also like to express our deepest
appreciation to the crew who remain steadfast in their posts as well as the
salvage experts and dredging team for their professionalism and relentless
efforts over the past 6 days toward securing this outcome."
According to Leth Agencies the number of vessels currently
waiting to transit the canal reached 367 as of Monday. That included 96
container ships, up from 53 container ships reported earlier.
Hapag-Lloyd said in a statement that the damaged area of the canal where the 224,000-tonne container ship ran aground will be inspected and repaired if necessary. The Hamburg-based ocean carrier said it expected transits to start late Tuesday, adding that the current backlog of ships waiting to move through the canal could be cleared within four days.
Hapag-Lloyd said it has nine ships at Suez anchorages
currently waiting to transit. It said it will not reroute any more vessels
around the Cape of Good Hope, aside from the six it had already sent the long
way around Africa as of Friday.
Even with the opening, however, Hapag-Lloyd said it wasn't
sure when vessels would be able to catch back up to their regular schedules.
"We currently do not know the exact ETA of our
affected vessels, but we will do our utmost to optimise the rotations in order
to minimise potential bottlenecks at ports and terminals," the carrier
said.
Maersk said in a customer update prior to the refloating
that it has a total of 32 vessels currently stuck in the canal or at one of the
anchorages. It had to reroute 15 vessels around the African cape.
Maersk said clearing the Suez backlog could take up to six
days or more. It warned that the resulting vessel bunching as ships discharge
their cargo as quickly as possible to resume a regular schedule means ports can
expect further congestion.
"Even when the canal gets reopened, the ripple effects
on global capacity and equipment are significant and the blockage has already
triggered a series of further disruptions and backlogs in global shipping that
could take weeks, possibly months, to unravel," Maersk said on Monday.
Source : HKSG.
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