UPDATE 3 on Suez Canal Blocked by Ever Given - Photos and Videos

The current situation with Ever Given

Tugs and diggers have so far failed to dislodge the massive container ship Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal on Wednesday, increasing the chances of prolonged delays in what is arguably the world's most important waterway.

Work to re-float the ship was resumed early morning on Thursday in Egypt, shipping agent Inchcape said, citing the Suez Canal Authority. Dredgers are still trying to loosen the vessel before any attempt to pull it out, the ship's manager said.

Current position of Ever Given container

An earlier report Wednesday suggested that the ship has been "partially refloated," but Ahmed Mekawy, an assistant manager at marine agency GAC, says that report was wrong, and that the 400-meter-long ship with a sailing weight of 220,000 tonnes was still very much stuck late in the day local time.

container ship ever given

Several dozen vessels, including other large container ships, tankers carrying oil and gas, and bulk vessels hauling grain have backed up at either end of the canal to create one of the worst shipping jams seen for years.

It's taxing to even grasp how big this ship is. About a quarter-mile long (400 meters) and weighing in at 200,000 metric tons, its sheer size is overwhelming the efforts to dig it out. A huge yellow excavator, itself about twice as tall as its driver, looked like a child's toy parked next to the ship's bulking bow.

Ever Given size

The situation has gotten so desperate that an elite salvage squad is due to arrive Thursday to work on prising the Ever Given from the bank of the canal, where it's blocking oceangoing carriers that haul everything from oil to consumer goods.

Still, the best chance for freeing the ship may not come until Sunday or Monday, when the tide will reach a peak, according to Nick Sloane, the salvage master responsible for refloating the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that capsized on the coast of Italy in 2012. Sloane works as the senior salvage master for Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Resolve Marine Group.

Price of Oil Spikes

Blocking Suez Canal Costs About $400 Million An Hour

About 12% of global trade goes through the canal, making it so strategic that world powers have fought over the waterway since it was completed in 1869. For now, all that traffic is backed up with the Ever Given aground in the southern part of the canal, creating another setback for global supply chains already strained by the e-commerce boom linked to the pandemic.

"The Suez Canal blockage comes at a particularly unhelpful time," said Greg Knowler, European editor at JOC Group, which is part of IHS Markit Ltd. "Even a two-day delay would further add to the supply chain disruption slowing the delivery of cargo to businesses across the U.K. and Europe."

It remains unclear when the route, through which around 10% of world trade flows and which is particularly crucial for the transport of oil, would reopen.

About a million barrels of oil pass through the canal on a normal day, and the backlog of delayed deliveries is already causing the price of oil to spike.

oil price spikes

The North American oil benchmark known as West Texas Intermediate gained more than $4 US or more than six per cent to just over $61 a barrel. Brent, the type of oil used in Europe and the blend most commonly passing through the canal every day, was up by even more.

Rory Johnston, managing director at Toronto-based investment firm Price Street Inc., said in an interview with CBC News on Wednesday that as long as the ship is moved within a day or two, the impact on the oil market should be muted.

"I think this is going to be a temporary thing and no one expects us to go on for a really long time, but it's also not a simple thing to get one of the world's largest ships ... wedged between one of the tightest choke points on earth."

About 10 per cent of the world's crude passes through the Suez canal every day, so if it is closed off for any length of time, the cost and difficulty or rerouting it will be borne by customers.

"All of this hinges on this being resolved in kind of a day or two. Once you get into a couple days long or a week, it becomes a very very different ballgame and people are going to have start diverting cargo around the southern tip of Africa," Johnston said, noting that impacts on supply chains beyond oil may start "cascading" from there.

Officials on the ground stressed that everything that can be done is being done.

What caused the ship's grounding?

High winds a possible cause

It wasn't immediately clear what caused the Ever Given to become wedged on Tuesday morning. GAC said the ship had lost power and the ability to steer.

Bernhard Schulte, however, denied the ship ever lost power.

Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship, said in a statement that the Ever Given had been overcome by strong winds as it entered the canal from the Red Sea, but none of its containers had sunk.

ever given container ship blocks suez canal due to ghuts wind

An Egyptian official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to brief journalists, similarly blamed a strong wind.

Egyptian forecasters said high winds and a sandstorm plagued the area Tuesday, with winds gusting as much as 50 kilometers per hour.

However, it remained unclear how wind alone would have been able to push a fully laden vessel. Typically, Egyptian pilots take over ships passing through the canal, but it wasn't immediately clear if that happened with the Ever Given.

Video reproducing the movements of Ever Given at the time of grounding