Suez Canal blockage causes $9 bln losses daily

JOHANNESBURG, March 26 (ANA) – The blockage of the Suez Canal in Egypt is barring an estimated US$9 billion worth of goods that should be passing through the waterway daily, Africanews reported on Friday, citing shipping journal Lloyd’s List.

The Suez is a critical waterway used for 10 percent of the world’s maritime trade. An on-going mission has been underway to try and free a 400 metre long container ship known as ‘’Ever Given’’ which has been blocking the canal for days.

Africanews said normally 70 ships carrying four 4 million tons of cargo would transit through the canal every day, which means millions of tons of cargo travelling to various destinations around the world have now been sitting idle since Tuesday night.

The vessel is one of the world’s largest container ships, carrying 20,000 containers and weighing more than 200,000 tons.

Al Jazeera quoted experts as saying dislodging the ship could take days or even weeks.

“I can’t exclude that it can last weeks if the ship is really stuck,” Peter Berdowski, chief executive officer of Boskalis Westminster, the parent company of the salvage team, said in an interview on the Nieuwsuur TV programme in the Netherlands, as reported by Al Jazeera.

“The process would take that long if you need to get rid of cargo and you need to do dredging as well.”

Reuters reported on Thursday that the Japanese owner of the stuck container ship, Shoei Kisen, had apologised for the crisis, saying the company was working towards a resolution.

– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa