The Japanese owner of the giant cargo ship that had been blocking Egypt’s Suez Canal since Tuesday has apologised for the disruption to global trade, reports BBC.
The blockage reportedly is holding up $9.6 billion of goods a day.
Disruption of global trade
“In cooperation with local authorities and Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, a vessel management company, we are trying to refloat [the Ever Given], but we are facing extreme difficulty,” the owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, said in a statement on Thursday.
“We sincerely apologize for causing a great deal of worry to ships in the Suez Canal and those planning to go through the canal,” it added.
Shipping expert Lloyd’s List valued the canal’s westbound traffic at roughly $5.1 billion a day and eastbound daily traffic at around $4.5 billion.
The blockage comes on top of the disruption to world trade already caused in the past year by COVID-19, with trade volumes hit by high rates of ship cancellations, shortages of containers and slower handling speeds at ports.
‘Enormous beached whale’
Shoei Kisen Kaisha said it was trying to resolve the situation as soon as possible, but the salvage company said that it may take weeks to free the huge container ship blocking the canal.
“It is like an enormous beached whale. It’s an enormous weight on the sand. We might have to work with a combination of reducing the weight by removing containers, oil and water from the ship, tug boats and dredging of sand.” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis, one of two rescue teams trying to free the ship.
After being stuck for a period of 6 days and 7 hours, the containership was finally free on 29th March 2021.
Read Also: World Commerce Resumes With the Suez Canal Crisis Concluded
Read Also: Giant Ship Stuck in the Suez Canal is Finally Free, 357 Vessels Pass Across
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Source: BBC
