Credit: Unsplash

One of the world’s most vital shipping lanes has been blocked off.

Egypt’s Suez Canal regularly plays host to numerous shipping vessels from all over the world, with around 97 ships passing through its wide waters on a daily basis. However, as it is such a massive, vital means of transport, its blockage could grind local shipping to a complete halt. This is what the local shipping authorities swiftly learned when a gigantic freighter found itself wedged almost perfectly between the canal’s two banks.


Yesterday evening, a quarter-mile long freighter, the Ever Given, was driven off course by powerful winds leftover from a recent sandstorm in the area. Due to poor visibility, it ended up running aground on one bank of the Suez Canal, and do its massive size, it ended up creating a near-complete wall to the other bank. With the Ever Given in the way, over 100 ships are now stranded on both ends of the canal as they wait for local authorities to dig the freighter out. If the operation takes longer than a day, then shipments of all kinds of products all over the world could see substantial delays.

“If that’s going to be a knock-on delay, then you’ll see piling up and bunching up of ships on their arrival in Europe as well,” said Akhil Nair, vice president of global carrier management at SEKO Logistics in Hong Kong. “It’s just one more factor that we didn’t need.”

According to recent reports, authorities are making progress in getting the Ever Given unstuck, and have managed to get it at least partially refloated. In the event the ship cannot be moved, however, its contents will need to be manually lifted out, its ballast tanks emptied, and the ship itself forcefully dredged onto shore, which will take even longer.