Suez: Long term implications ??

[Alisoncc]

Just been reading about the "stuck" ship in the Suez. Looks painful. One pundit suggesting that in the process of "tugging it", if not very careful they could break it in half. They are not designed for the application of excessive sideways torque on one end and not t'other. Now that would be a blockage. The Cape may well see a significant increase in traffic. Interesting times.

[llondel]

I just like the pictures of that great big ship and the tiny digger they had excavating the bow.

There's probably going to be a clause in transit contracts about keeping the ship pointed in the correct direction and big $$$ to pay if you don't.

Must be a significant impact and knock-on if you've got all these ships on a schedule and now they're all delayed a few days, so dockers will sit idle when they should have been moving containers and then be overworked when the ships turn up and the berths are full of other ships. Not to mention the global cost.

[John Hill]

The Dutch probably have some sort of sucky barges that could suck all the sand out from underneath the ship.

[TheGreenGoblin]

The Cape Town helicopter companies in the maritime and victualling service industry might see a brief up uptick in their business, if this canal block continues!

[TheGreenGoblin]

The Dutch probably have some sort of sucky barges that could suck all the sand out from underneath the ship.

In such a narrow and shallow area the sand suck just moves the problem elsewhere. The situation certainly sucks!

[Pontius Navigator]

Llondel, not just dockers, of whom there are few, but all the haulage companies. And lots of frustration as the existing sex toys wear out and their replacements are stuck in transit.

Then the choreography involved in handling the containers. Spent the odd hour watching containers being stacked and restacked readying for loading or despatch by road. Then the returned loads or empties will be piling up at the terminals but they need space to offload 20,000 at a time.
There must be some very clever people doing flow control.

[TheGreenGoblin]

It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Just finished talking to an old UCT friend and now senior partner in a Maritime Legal Services firm who is now rushed off his feet due to all the claims coming in.

[Pontius Navigator]

I bet UP is watching that too.

[Undried Plum]

I bet UP is watching that too.

My Members Agent reckons that demurrage rates will go up as a direct result, so the losses incurred by my Marine Risk nameco will be made up for over the three year accounting period.

This incident is very unusual in that there are very few direct losses. It's all about consequential damages and the big boys carry a lot of that risk themselves as being just a part of the game for shippers and ship owners.

I guess the skipper and the pilot will be looking for new jobs!

[Ex-Ascot]

If the skipper and pilot have half an ounce of sense they will have lowered themselves off the bow of the ship and legged it on a camel.

There is also the question of booked slots in ports all now lost by those stuck. That is going to result in further delays when they shift this barge.

[Pontius Navigator]

At least it reinforces 'slow boat from China'

I wonder if there will be an uplift in air freight. Obviously minimal compared with 20,000 TEU stuck on just one ship, but just think of all the crap being churned out by Chinkie sweatshops and no onward movement.

I guess ships that have yet to head for the Red Sea may be diverted round the Cape, and Med traffic, will they weight (sic) and see? If your cargo is mainly empties there is no purchase in going the long way round.

[1DC]

Takes an extra week for one of those big lads to go round the Cape. At least it will give the receiving ports in Europe and the UK time to clear all the congestion that they have now.
Got caught in a sandstorm in the canal once it was surprising how quickly it came and went but the wind was up in the 60 to 70 knot range and the visibility came down to a few hundred feet. If you didn't get tied up to the bank quickly you were at the mercy of the wind, in those days about early sixties each transit ship carried a couple of small boats strung on derricks each with a crew of two and if you had to do an emergency tie up you dropped the boats and moored as quickly as you could. The Egyptians were very efficient though. Don't know what happens now.
I remember an old Captain telling me who had used the canal in the old days when the British ran it that everyone thought that when the Egyptians took over that it would be chaos but the truth of the matter was that the Egyptians were ten or more times more efficient than the Brits and transiting the canal became a much easier and quicker experience.

[tango15]

Fair comment 1DC, but I can't help thinking that, given the ever-increasing size of VLCCs and other vessels, if just a few of the billions of $ that the Suez Canal Company rakes in every year had been spent on widening the canal, (as Panama has done), then none of this would have happened. I am surprised by just how narrow it is at this point - an accident waiting to happen. Those of us in the northern hemisphere can expect the price of fuel to rise in the coming weeks and months, I imagine.

[TheGreenGoblin]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... cked-ships

As of Friday morning, the Panama-registered vessel, operated by Evergreen Marine of Taiwan, remained grounded in the same position, with tugboats and dredgers still working to free it, according to the canal service provider Leth Agencies.

An Egyptian canal authority official told Associated Press that the refloating operation was a “very sensitive and complicated” operation. They wanted to avoid “any complications” that could extend the canal closure.

The canal authority said late on Thursday that it would need to remove up to 706,000 cubic feet (20,000 cubic metres) of sand to reach a depth of 39 to 52 feet (12 to 16 metres). That depth is likely to allow the ship to float freely again, it said.

At least four Long-Range 2 tankers that might have been headed towards Suez from the Atlantic basin were now likely to be evaluating a passage around the Cape of Good Hope, the London-based shipbroker Braemar ACM said on Friday. Each LR-2 tanker can carry 75,000 tonnes of oil.

The international shipping company Maersk said on Friday it was “looking at all alternatives” for its nine container ships stuck in the queues.

“Everyone is making contingency plans as we speak,” said Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO, according to CNN.

Authorities in Egypt will continue to work with salvage teams from across the world to free the Ever Given, which became lodged across the southern section of the canal on Tuesday when it lost control during a storm. Tugs have been unable to pull it free and efforts to dig out the bow with excavators have come to nothing.

Experts fear that the massive ship, which is 400m long and has a gross tonnage of almost 220,000, has wedged so far into the sand on either bank of the canal that it might not be possible to dislodge it without removing some of its cargo. Such a process could take weeks, according to Peter Berdowski, chief executive of Boskalis, a specialist dredging company that has sent a crew to the scene.

Maersk said in a statement on Friday: “We closely follow the refloating operations and are currently looking at all alternatives possible.”

Maersk’s main international rival, Hapag Lloyd, was also reported by Agence-France Presse to be considering sending shipping round the Cape of Good Hope, on the southern tip of Africa, in order to ensure that goods could reach Europe without even greater delays.

[1DC]

The Egyptians have made a lot of improvements, quite a lot of the canal now is a dual system with a parallel canal being dug out, unfortunately not the bit where the accident happened!

[tango15]

UNCLE ALBERT.jpg (45.39 KiB) Viewed 2206 times

[Boac]

to free the Ever Given

So, their journos are deferably dyslectix. (Borrowed PN's spell-checker there - did you notice? )

[ian16th]

How many European built cars are not going to be coming off the production lines, for the lack of a $5 Chinese made switch?

[Rwy in Sight]

Fortunately the Easter rush for the Western Europe is over although fuel supplies would be an issue.

[llondel]

Llondel, not just dockers, of whom there are few, but all the haulage companies. And lots of frustration as the existing sex toys wear out and their replacements are stuck in transit.

Then the choreography involved in handling the containers. Spent the odd hour watching containers being stacked and restacked readying for loading or despatch by road. Then the returned loads or empties will be piling up at the terminals but they need space to offload 20,000 at a time.
There must be some very clever people doing flow control.

I've spent time watching ships at Oakland, in the days when I worked on Alameda Island with a great view across the water. Spent one lunchtime watching them turn a ship upriver with a fleet of tugs. Very slow and careful process with that much mass. Those things are huge, you don't really appreciate the size until they're sat in dock and you can see the scale.