Accompanied by a blaring horn and cries of “God is great”, in the early hours of Monday morning, it finally budged.
An Egyptian and international salvaging team has succeeded in partially freeing a vast container ship that had become stuck on the banks of the Suez canal for six days, holding up tens of billions of dollars’ worth of global trade.
But engineers warned the blockage was not yet cleared, with the ship’s bulbous bow – or front end - still stuck at the canal’s edge and salvagers contemplating removing containers from the vessel to lighten its load, a process that is likely to take at least days.
“Don’t cheer too soon,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, told Dutch NPO Radio 1. “The good news is that the stern is free but we saw that as the simplest part of the job.”
The toughest challenge remained at the front of the ship, he added, noting it was still “stuck rock-solid” and that workers would struggle to haul the fully laden 220,000-ton vessel over the clay of the canal bank.
If that did not succeed, Berdowski said, cranes would be required to lift containers off the bow-side and place them on smaller ships docked alongside the Ever Given, further extending the timeline of the operation.
A fleet of 14 tugboats made another attempt to pull the vessel’s front-end free of the banks on Monday afternoon, with experts speculating that if they are unable to do so salvagers might try again mid-week when tides will be higher.
Dredgers, excavators and tugboats worked throughout the weekend fighting changing wind and tides to dislodge thousands of cubic metres of dense clay caked around the 400-metre-long mega-ship MV Ever Given, managing in the early hours of Monday to rotate the vessel and free its stern side.
The stern had been 4 metres from the shoreline but was now 102 metres clear, the Suez Canal Authority said. Footage posted online at about 9am local time showed it floating in the waterway, a marked contrast to the diagonally wedged ship whose nearly week-long predicament has raised oil and freight prices and may cause delays at ports around the world.
Greetings and appreciation to the Egyptian administration and the Suez Canal Authority for this work pic.twitter.com/dfS8AdDbmn
— مًحًـمًدٍ إبرآهّيَـمً Fathelbab (@IbrahemFthelbab) March 29, 2021
Though the waterway remains blocked to everything but small vessels, the Egyptian government portrayed Monday’s progress as a victory over what was becoming a costly problem for a piece of infrastructure that looms large in the country’s modern history.
“Today, Egyptians have been successful in putting to an end the crisis of the stranded ship in the Suez canal, despite the enormous complexity surrounding the process,” the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, wrote on Twitter.
The canal, inaugurated in 1869, had been dug by “their grandparents with the force of their bodies”, he said. “Egyptians have proved today that they are still up to the task.”
The financial data firm Refinitiv said on Monday the accident was costing the state-owned Suez Canal Authority about $16m a day in lost revenues.
The Japanese-owned Ever Given was partially refloated at 4.30am local time (0230 GMT), said Inchcape, a global provider of marine services.
The progress of the salvaging mission followed 48 hours of highs and lows, with the freeing of the ship’s rudder on Friday night raising hopes the end was in sight, until rising tides undid the work. By Sunday, Sisi was talking of the need to lighten the ship, a delicate and time-consuming process that is considered one of the worst-case scenarios.
All the while, an Egyptian team working with Japanese and Dutch consultants dredged, dug and pulled around the clock, hoping to take advantage of a high spring tide on Sunday night that provided their best chance to refloat the container ship.
Osama Rabei, the head of the SCA, confirmed that the vessel had been partially refloated after responding successfully to “pull-and-push manoeuvres”.
Each day of the blockade could be costing global trade some $6-10 billion, according to a study published Friday by German insurer Allianz.
As the blockage continued, there was growing scrutiny of how the incident had occurred. It emerged on Monday that the Ever Given was reportedly involved in another serious maritime incident in Germany in 2019. The vessel crashed into a small ferry, the Wall Street Journal reported, sparking a criminal investigation that ultimately found no fault on the part of the Ever Given’s captain.
Even when the stricken vessel is released, it will be several days before other ships can sail through the canal, said a Greek sea captain whose oil tanker is stuck behind the Ever Given. “According to the canal’s rules they have to remove it.”
Konstantinos Arletis told Mega TV on Monday when asked if other vessels would be able to sail past the stricken ship: “Other ships aren’t allowed to sail next to it … we’re being told an inspection has to be conducted first to see what damage the canal has sustained and if repairs are needed,” he said, explaining if other ships traversed the waterway they could further damage the affected area.
“When they tugged the ship quite a lot of sand was dislodged, which has changed the depth of the canal.”
Overnight, several dredgers had toiled to vacuum up 27,000 cubic metres of sand and mud around the ship. Another powerful tugboat, Carlo Magno, arrived at the scene to join the work on Monday, and the tugs would focus their efforts on the front of the ship, said Berdowski.
Although the vessel is vulnerable to damage in its current position, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the Japanese company that owns the Ever Given dismissed concerns on Monday, saying that the ship’s engine was functional and it could pursue its trip normally when freed. It was not clear whether the Panama-flagged, hauling goods from Asia to Europe, would head to its original destination of Rotterdam or if it would need to enter another port for repairs.
A canal official, who requested anonymity, said the team on the ground had started technical checks, and were reassured that the ship’s motor was working.
Ship-tracking websites early on Monday morning showed that the ship had moved from its position lodged between the banks, with the bow pointing northwards away from the east bank.
BREAKING: SERIOUS MOVEMENT HAPPENING NOW.
— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) March 29, 2021
Latest AIS data shows that the #EVERGIVEN's stern has been dramatically pivoted off the #Suez Canal's Western wall.
Stern now appears to be in the channel. pic.twitter.com/89KFvfjqeR
BREAKING : EVER GIVEN ship has been UNSTUCK & Moving into #Suez Canal after 6 Days!!
— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) March 29, 2021
Egyptian crew managed to float it moments ago. It’s 5:42 am there: pic.twitter.com/GoMlYjQerL
Crude oil prices fell after news the ship had been partially refloated, with Brent crude down by $1.41 a barrel to $63.05.
Diggers had been working to remove parts of the canal’s bank and expand dredging close to the ship’s bow to a depth of 18 metres (59ft), the SCA said in a statement.
The 400-metre-long (1,300ft) Ever Given became jammed diagonally across a southern section of the canal in high winds early on 23 March, halting traffic on the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
At least 369 vessels were waiting to transit the canal, Rabie said, including dozens of container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers and liquefied natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas vessels.
Many other ships have already been rerouted around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in order to circumvent the Suez blockage, although the 5,500-mile (9,000km) diversion takes seven to 10 days longer and adds a huge fuel bill to the trip between Asia and Europe.
Agencies contributed to this report