Maritime Executive \u2013 by Njiraini Muchir<\/b><\/p>\n
Authorities in Egypt have officially unveiled plans to expand and deepen the Suez Canal waterway after a mega-ship blockage caused substantial losses and raised the prospect that\u00a0 shipping lines might seek\u00a0alternative routes.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi\u00a0approved the project, which will involve the widening and deepening of the southern part of the canal where giant boxship\u00a0Ever Given<\/em>\u00a0went aground and blocked traffic for six days in March.<\/p>\n Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman Osama Rabie unveiled the expansion plan in a televised address attended by El-Sisi, stating that it was crucial in order to improve the navigation of ships.\u00a0\u201cIt will lead to improvements in the ability of the guide and the captain of any ship to navigate inside the canal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n SCA has claimed losses totaling $916 million due to\u00a0the\u00a0Ever Given\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>grounding and the resulting\u00a0blockade, which closed\u00a0the quickest maritime link between Asia and Europe for nearly a week.\u00a0With the canal being one of Egypt\u2019s main sources of foreign currency \u2013 generating $5.6 billion in revenues in 2020 \u2013 the country is eager to ensure that it retains its dominance on Asia-Europe trade lanes.<\/p>\n Last year, 18,829 ships with a total net tonnage of 1.17 billion passed through the canal, and the average daily traffic ranged from 40 to 50 ships.<\/p>\n Some shipping lines and countries like Japan are considering Russia\u2019s Northern Sea Route as an alternative, but geopolitical and navigational hurdles remain.\u00a0Russia has in recent weeks deployed nuclear icebreakers to improve accessibility for maritime traffic along the route, which saw annual traffic last year totaling\u00a0133 ships.<\/p>\n Though the Cape of Good Hope also stands as an alternative route, the additional 15 days needed for transit and the greater use of fuel compared to the Suez Canal route is a deterrent to shipping lines.<\/p>\n About 12 percent\u00a0of the world trade volume passes through the Suez Canal, making it one of the world\u2019s busiest waterways.<\/p>\n To safeguard the competitive position of the Suez Canal, SCA intends to widen the canal\u2019s southern stretch by about 40 meters to the east on the side of the Sinai Peninsula. The segment would also be deepened to 72 feet from the current 66 feet in depth.<\/p>\n The project, which will be implemented over the next 24 months, also includes a five nautical mile\u00a0extension of a second lane of the waterway that opened in 2015. That would bring the double-lane stretch of the canal to 44 nm, allowing more vessels to pass through the canal.<\/p>\n Last month, SCA took delivery of a giant 48,000 ton dredge dubbed\u00a0Mohab Mamish,<\/em>\u00a0which will be part of a fleet undertaking the project.<\/p>\n In 2015, Egypt invested $8.5 billion on an expansion project of the northern section of the canal, but the southern portion between the Great Bitter Lake region and the Red Sea was never improved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maritime Executive \u2013 by Njiraini Muchir Authorities in Egypt have officially unveiled plans to expand and deepen the Suez Canal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flagship-eg.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}