The evergreen vessel that blocked Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest waterways, was successfully refloated at 4:30 am Egypt local time on Monday, according to Authority.
The vessel has now restarted its engines, stated the Egyptian crew that worked hard to dislodge the vessel.
Egyptian authority had announced on Sunday that 369 vessels were on queue and waiting to pass through the blocked Suez Canal.
However, with the vessel now freed, the authority could announce resumption of operations through the canal on or before Wednesday but could take weeks for all the vessel past through given its daily operation of 50 vessel.
According to Lloyd’s List, the Suez Canal blockage disrupts supply of over $9 billion worth of goods each day. This, experts believe would impact would further drag on global supply chain that had already been impacted by coronavirus pandemic.
“You normally have about 50 or so ships a day going through the canal, obviously at the moment it’s about 300 ships backed up … this is an enormous traffic jam, which is at both ends of the canal,” Tim Huxley, director of Mandarin Shipping said on Monday.
“This will take quite a while for the whole supply chain to get back to normal and that’s gonna have an impact on manufacturers, retailers right across the board,” said Huxley.