SUEZ CANAL, Egypt
An oil tanker ran aground
Wednesday in Egypt’s Suez Canal, briefly blocking traffic in the global
waterway before it was freed, the canal’s authority said.
The Singaporean-flagged
Affinity V vessel had become wedged in a single-lane stretch of the canal, the
Suez Canal Authority’s head Osama Rabie said in a statement issued by the body.
He said that five of the
authority’s tug boats managed to get the vessel floating again in a coordinated
operation. He said a technical failure in the boat’s steering mechanism caused
it to hit the bank of the canal, and that navigation for other ships passing
through the canal had returned to normal.
A spokesman for Suez Canal
Authority told the government-affiliated Extra News satellite television
channel that the ship ran aground around 7.15 p.m. local time, and was floating
again some five hours later.
Geroge Safwat said the vessel
was part of a convoy heading south to the Red Sea. Two convoys transit through
the Suez Canal everyday; One north-bound to the Mediterranean and the other
south-bound to the Red Sea. The man-made waterway divides continental Africa
from the Sinai Peninsula, and provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas and
cargo.
The ship was built in 2016
with a length of 252 meters (827 feet) and a width of 45 meters (148 feet). It
sailed from Portugal and its destination was the Saudi Arabian Red Sea port of
Yanbu, according to the spokesman.
Wednesday’s incident was not
the first to block the crucial waterway. Buffeted by a sandstorm, the
Panama-flagged Ever Given, a colossal container ship, had crashed into a bank
of a single-lane stretch of the canal in March 2021.
The Japanese-owned Ever Given
blocked the canal for six days before being released in a massive salvage
effort by a flotilla of tugboats. That created a massive traffic jam that held
up $9 billion a day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened
by the coronavirus pandemic.
In September 2021, another
large shipping vessel ran aground before authorities managed to free it within
hours.
Following the March 2021
incident, canal authorities began working to widen and deepen the waterway’s
southern part where the Ever Given ran aground.
About 10% of world trade flows
through the canal, a pivotal source of foreign currency to Egypt. Authorities
said 20,649 vessels passed through the canal last year, a 10% increase compared
to 18,830 vessels in 2020. The annual revenues of the canal reached $6.3
billion in 2021, the highest in its history. - AP
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