A 400-meter-long container ship that has been stuck in the Suez Canal for nearly a week, causing a major logjam in global shipping traffic, was freed on Monday, 29 March.
The Ever Given, owned by Japanese shipping firm Shoei Kisen, got stuck Egypt’s Suez Canal on Tuesday, 23 March, while navigating through a sandstorm. Since then, all traffic through the canal – a key shipping route connecting Asia with Europe and North America, allowing commerce worth an estimated USD 9.6 billion (EUR 8.2 billion) daily – had been blocked.
On Monday, 29 March, the Suez Canal Authority announced the full refloating of the 247,000-ton Ever Given at 3 p.m. local time, according to The New York Times.
Suez Canal Authority Chairman and Managing Director Osama Rabie said in a statement the Ever Given would be taken to the Bitter Lakes, in the middle of the canal, for inspection, and that navigation of the canal will be resumed as quickly as possible.
During the preceding week, some ships decided not to wait for the canal to clear, instead diverting around the southern tip of Africa, a voyage that added up to a week of sailing and more than USD 26,000 (EUR 22,000) per day in fuel costs, according to CNBC.
The blockage of the Suez Canal exacerbated a global shipping crisis that has been growing in size and scope over the past several months, significantly impacting the seafood industry. A severe shortage of shipping containers is leading to rising costs and difficulty moving goods, playing havoc with seafood exporters in Asia. Delays in travel in and out of ports in China due to heightened cargo inspections have also hampered global commerce.
Allcargo Logistics Joint Managing Director Adarsh Hegde said the Suez situation will cause freight prices to skyrocket even further.
“The Suez Canal is one of the busiest commercial waterways and important shipping lanes in the world. By forming a key shipping route for vessels passing from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean region, it accounts for the passage of around 30 percent of the global container shipping volumes," Hegde told The Economic Times of India. "A massive container ship running aground and blocking such an important shipping lane can have adverse repercussions for the global export trade,” he says.
On 26 March, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said Vietnamese exporters are having significant trouble sending their frozen products to the United States due to a lack of vessel availability, along with higher freight rates. The situation is “tense” because there is limited space for frozen seafood on most of the carriers’ ships to the U.S., and shippers are giving priority to dry products as their freight rates are higher than those of frozen seafood, VASEP said. One firm, the Mediterranean Shipping Company, announced a complete postponement of all frozen cargoes to the U.S. starting in April. The company’s move is expected to create cascading pressure on other shipping lines to make a similar decision.
A pangasius exporter from Can Tho City in Mekong Delta said in the VASEP’s statement that shipping lines only offer freight rates shortly before the departure of their vessels, giving the company only 10 to 15 days of lead-time, which the exporter said was not enough to allow it to negotiate on shipping prices. Many carriers do not allow exporters to book places further in advance, and companies that don’t have their goods ready to load as planned are fined USD 1,500 (EUR 1,270) per container.
“Currently, seafood companies do not know how to ‘swim,’ as shipping lines have become God,” VASEP said.
Vietnam has been able to increase the value of its seafood exports value in recent months, but VASEP warned that is not necessarily a positive sign, as rising shipping costs have been the greatest contributor to those higher prices.
Additional reporting by Cliff White
Photo courtesy of Suez Canal Authority
