The Suez Canal Was Briefly Blocked Again By Shipping

An oil tanker ran aground Wednesday in Egypt’s Suez Canal, briefly blocking the global waterway before breaking free, the canal authority said. The Singapore-flagged vessel Affinity V was stuck in a single-lane section of the canal, Suez Canal Authority chief Osama Rabie said in a statement issued by the body. He said five of the authority’s tugs managed to refloat the vessel in a coordinated operation. He said a technical fault with the vessel’s steering mechanism caused it to hit the canal bank and that navigation for other ships passing through the canal had returned to normal. A spokesman for the Suez Canal Authority told the government-linked Extra News satellite TV channel that the ship ran aground around 7:15 p.m. local time and refloated about five hours later. George Safwat said the ship sailed from Portugal and was destined for Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu. He said the ship was part of a convoy heading south to the Red Sea. Two convoys pass through the Suez Canal daily. One with the Mediterranean to the north and the other with the Red Sea to the south. The ship was built in 2016 with a length of 252 meters (827 ft) and a width of 45 meters (148 ft). In March 2021, the Japanese-owned Ever Given, a colossal container ship, was stuck for almost a week in the channel. Flooded by a sandstorm, Ever Given ran aground on a single-lane section of the canal about 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez. The blockade created a massive traffic jam that held back $9 billion a day in global trade and strained supply chains already strained by the coronavirus pandemic. A few months later, in September 2021, another large shipping vessel ran aground before authorities managed to free it within hours.

title: “The Suez Canal Was Briefly Blocked Again By Shipping Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-01” author: “Kris Dixon”

An oil tanker ran aground Wednesday in Egypt’s Suez Canal, briefly blocking the global waterway before breaking free, the canal authority said. The Singapore-flagged vessel Affinity V was stuck in a single-lane section of the canal, Suez Canal Authority chief Osama Rabie said in a statement issued by the body. He said five of the authority’s tugs managed to refloat the vessel in a coordinated operation. He said a technical fault with the vessel’s steering mechanism caused it to hit the canal bank and that navigation for other ships passing through the canal had returned to normal. A spokesman for the Suez Canal Authority told the government-linked Extra News satellite TV channel that the ship ran aground around 7:15 p.m. local time and refloated about five hours later. George Safwat said the ship sailed from Portugal and was destined for Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu. He said the ship was part of a convoy heading south to the Red Sea. Two convoys pass through the Suez Canal daily. One with the Mediterranean to the north and the other with the Red Sea to the south. The ship was built in 2016 with a length of 252 meters (827 ft) and a width of 45 meters (148 ft). In March 2021, the Japanese-owned Ever Given, a colossal container ship, was stuck for almost a week in the channel. Flooded by a sandstorm, Ever Given ran aground on a single-lane section of the canal about 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez. The blockade created a massive traffic jam that held back $9 billion a day in global trade and strained supply chains already strained by the coronavirus pandemic. A few months later, in September 2021, another large shipping vessel ran aground before authorities managed to free it within hours.