UPGRADE NOW TO AVOID ANOTHER FIASCO, SUEZ CANAL EXECS TOLD

Egypt’s Suez Canal must move quickly to upgrade its technical infrastructure if it is to avoid future shipping disruption, shipping industry sources said, as the major trade route tries to bounce back from a costly six-day closure, Jonathan Saul ad Patrick Werr reported for Reuters.

International supply chains were thrown into disarray on March 23 when the 400-meter-long (430-yard) container ship Ever Given ran aground in the canal, with specialist rescue teams taking almost a week to free her after extensive dredging and repeated tugging operations.

Egypt will get two new tugboats, one next week and one in August, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Osama Rabie said after the ship was finally freed, as well as taking the biggest dredger in the Middle East and arranging for a further five new Chinese tugboats.

But shipping industry sources said specialist equipment and associated procedures have long struggled to keep up with the ever-increasing size of commercial vessels.

“The average size of most vessels has increased exponentially over the last 15 years. The ability to salvage these bigger ships has not,” said Peter Townsend, a marine insurance industry veteran.

“The issue is getting containers off essentially a 20-storey high building at sea.”

Michael Kingston, an international shipping specialist and an adviser to the United Nations International Maritime Organization (UN IMO), flagged such problems in 2013, three years before the MSC Fabiola container ship ran aground, also blocking traffic for days.

“The obvious way to lighten a vessel ... is to take the containers off. They had no way of doing it. No equipment was readily available,” he said of the Ever Given incident.

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