Suez Canal must upgrade quickly to avoid future disruption: Shipping sources

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.

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.

Michael Kingston, an international shipping specialist and an adviser to the United Nation’s International Maritime Organization, 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.

The SCA says the canal can safely take vessels of the Ever Given’s size – with a maximum capacity of 20,000 TEU (20-foot containers) – even in rough weather.

As well as bigger tugboats, dredgers and offloaders, stricter guidelines on how ships transit the canal are needed, the industry sources said. Those could include using tugs to assist large vessels, or only permitting transit during daylight hours.

“Of course, there are many lessons learned from the (Ever Given) incident. Of course we have the capabilities,” the SCA’s Rabie said.

Visiting the canal this week, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said: “We have to give a strong message to the world that the Suez Canal … can transport world trade at this rate or more.”

“An expansion for the southern section of the canal can be under consideration,” said Sisi. “It’s up to the technical people. We don’t want to take measures just due to extraordinary situations.”