Ever Given and the SUEZ Canal crisis

SUEZ Canal Crisis 2021, the Ever Given ship

In March 2021, a big crisis in global trade happened when a big container ship named “Ever Given” ran around and blocked the SUEZ Canal, which is one of the busiest shipping routes.

This incident happens in the morning of 23rd March 2021. As per the reports of different media, the 400 mtr (1300 ft) long vessel was turned by strong winds and the stuck up across the canal which is 300 mtr wide. The bow and the stern stuck in the muddy bank of the canal due to which the passage got blocked for other ships. There were 25 Indian crew members on the ship.

Satellite image of Ever Given blocking the canal in March 2021 (Wikipedia)

Suez canal is one of the busiest shipping routes in the world and connects the sea route between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Due to this blockage $9.6 billion worth of trade has been prevented. On 29th March 2021 finally with huge efforts of the Suez canal crew, Dutch and Italian tug ships, the large Ever Given freed and re-floated.

The SUEZ Canal

Reason behind the Suez Canal crisis 2021:

On 23rd March 2021, this ship was passing through the Suez canal. It was on it’s way from Tanjung Pelepas to Rotterdam when it was hit by strong winds and sandstorm and moved diagonally blocking the canal and stuck in the muddy bank of the canal. As the length of the ship is more than the width of the Suez canal, the traffic in both directions was blocked. More than 200 vessels had to stop their movement due to this incident and caused a huge traffic jam over six days. Due to this, there was a huge supply chain delay causing high risk of trade disruption between Europe, Asia and the Middle east. 

Ever given blocked the suez canal

Position of Ever Given

The response to the crisis:

Numerous attempts were made to clear the canal is six days to re-establish the global supply chain. The Suez Canal Authority deployed a Dutch company to handle the Marine salvage operation. Tugs were used to move the ship by pushing and towing and dredgers were used to clear the sand and mud from the bottom side of the stern and bow. Excavators were used to remove the mud from the sides of the bow to help the ship refloat. Almost all of the fuel and ballast water was removed from the vessel to reduce the weight. At last on 29th March with the help of high tide, the stern of the Ever Given floated again and an Italian Tugboat helped increase the towing. Almost 14 tugboats helped the giant vessel to refloat in the sea. As per the reports of different news channels, the backlogs of ships are cleared on 3rd April 2021.After the vessel gets freed, it will be taken to the Great Bitter lake for further inspection.

Tug ships trying to pull the giant ship

Excavator trying to move mud 

Impact on Global Trade:

The economic experts warned that this may cause delay in the daily usage items to the consumers. As per BBC News, around 12% of global trade is happening through the Suez canal every day. This includes million barrels of oil and liquefied natural gas. As per the New York Times, almost 20,000 ships passed this canal in 2020 and 30% of the global container ship moves through this canal on a daily basis.. Containers loaded with food, fuel and manufacturing goods were stuck up causing delay of $400 billion worth of goods every hour. There was a loss of $12-14 million per day to Egypt due to this closure. As a result of delay of oil from other cargo ships, there was a chance of an increase of the oil prices globally.

The global supply chain is highly affected due to this event. Several manufacturing components were stuck up and delayed more than a week which caused a chance of shortages to industries like semiconductor industries, coffee, toilet paper, laptops. Now to overcome this scenario, future shipments could be ordered in advance to cope up with the delivery gap. This may cause a Domino effect (this is a set of events occurring due to the change in a single event or linked sequence of events) which may last for the next several months.

Another scenario is that, during this congestion, several ships have taken the alternate route through the southern tip of Africa, which will take almost 2 weeks longer time. This will cause a severe delay in shipments and there is also a chance of high traffic when they arrive at the ports. The future sailing schedules will also get affected.

About the Ever Given vessel:

Ever Given is one of the largest container vessels and is a golden class container vessel. There is a confusion about the name of the ship whether it is “Ever Green” or “Ever Given”. Actually the name of this ship is “Ever Given and the Japanese ship building company Imabari Shipbuilding is the owner of this ship. This giant ship is operated by “Evergreen Marine”, which is a container transportation and shipping company and therefore this name is mentioned on the body of the ship. This ship is registered in Panama.

The Ever Given vessel is 400 mtr (1300 ft) long, weighs 2.2 lakh tonnes and 59 mtr wide. It was carrying more than 18,000 containers.

Ever given ship size; source- bbc news

About the Suez Canal:

Suez canal is an artificial canal made by human in the mid 1800s. It is the connecting waterway between the Mediterranean sea and the Red sea through the Isthmus of Suez. It took 10 years, from 1859 to 1869 to complete this canal. The length of this canal is 193 Kilometres and it is the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe. The control of this canal is lying with the state owned company “Suez Canal Authority” of Egypt.

SUEZ Canal