At 7:40 am this morning, Evergreen’s 20k TEU Ever Given ran aground sideways in the Suez Canal, completely blocking the channel, with the potential to impact oil and sea freight prices if is not freed by the tugs currently trying to assist.
The 400m-long container ship was in a northbound convoy of twenty vessels, with fifteen vessels following, when it ran aground.
Traffic in both directions was blocked, quickly resulting in a traffic jam of vessels and the subsequent opening of the canal’s older channel to divert traffic and ease the queues.
The ship’s owner, Taiwanese owned Evergreen, said it had been blown off course by “a suspect gust of wind” just north of the port of Suez.
Every day, about 50 vessels sail through the 120-mile Suez Canal, which is a renowned chokepoint for global trade.
If they can free the Evergreen Ever Given swiftly, any wider impact will be minimised, but if they cannot turn the vessel on a high tide, the canal authorities may need to remove large quantities of sand from the banks or begin unloading her cargo, which may take days.
Any prolonged blockage would have severe consequences, from affecting oil prices and shipping rates to forcing container vessels to take the much longer route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, potentially increasing transit times by a week.
There have not been many cases of ultra-large vessels running aground, but when the 19,000 TEU CSCL Indian Ocean ran aground in the Elbe river in 2016, it took 6 days to get the vessel re-floated.
Shipping lines will be considering how long they wait before they begin diverting vessels around Africa on Asia-North Europe and Asia-USEC services, adding a week to transit and using a lot more fuel.
The longer the canal is closed, the larger the queue of vessels will be lined up to transit it, which means that additional waiting times must be anticipated even when the canal does open up again. There are restrictions and limits in the number of vessels that can access the canal per day so it may be that a 72 hour impact actually takes significantly longer to repair and unwind.
We are monitoring the situation in the Suez closely and will share any developments. We are hopeful there will be no prolonged delays, but if the situation does deteriorate we contact impacted customers directly to keep them informed of developments.
