Suez Canal: Giant container ship Ever Given partially refloated

A giant container ship that has blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week has been refloated, raising hopes that the international waterway will soon be clear.

The 400-metre long Ever Given had been dislodged from the banks of the Suez Canal on Monday morning, marine services company Inchcape said in a tweet. 

"The MV Ever Given was successfully re-floated at 04:30," said Inchcape.

"She is being secured at the moment."

Local authorities added that the vessel was 80 percent clear, and that the next step would be to continue tugging efforts to free the vessel and direct it to a waiting area. 

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Monday that Egyptians had succeeded in ending the crisis of the container ship stranded in the Suez Canal.

“And by restoring matters to their normal course, with Egyptian hands, the whole world can be assured of the path of its goods and needs that are carried through this navigational artery,” Sisi said on his official Twitter account. 

'By restoring matters to their normal course, with Egyptian hands, the whole world can be assured of the path of its goods and needs that are carried through this navigational artery'

- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

Admiral Omar Rabie, who heads the Suez Canal Authority, said on Facebook that the next steps would be to manoeuvre the ship during a high tide on Monday which will lead to the "full restoration of the vessel’s direction so it is positioned in the middle of the navigable waterway".

The Ever Given container ship, which is the size of four football pitches, has blocked the Suez Canal for the past six days, crippling international trade and causing losses worth billions of dollars. 

The blockage has stopped traffic coming from both directions and forced companies to consider taking a more expensive route that diverts vessels past South Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

Rabie said that the blockage had held up more than 320 ships on either side of the canal. He added that the waterway's closure meant the Egyptians had lost at least $12m-$14m in revenue. 

Lloyd's List, a shipping data and news company, said it had also seen a "surge" in vessels opting to go around Africa instead of waiting for the canal to be cleared.

Lloyd’s estimated the canal’s westbound traffic to be valued at roughly $5.1bn a day, and eastbound traffic at around $4.5bn a day.  

The 200,000-tonne MV Ever Given veered off course in the Suez Canal last Tuesday, an incident officials blamed on high wind speeds and sandstorms. 

But Rabie on Saturday acknowledged that "technical or human errors" led to the Panama-registered super container ship's grounding.