A large oil tanker blocked the Suez Canal about 20 minutes late on Wednesday evening, raising fears that the incident could disrupt maritime traffic in early 2021, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said.
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The Affinity V oil tanker sank in the Suez Canal for twenty minutes, security sources told AFP.
The canal is one of the busiest shipping routes in world trade.
The 64,000-tonne tanker was “successfully refloated”, the SCA announced, adding that it mobilized “canal rescue services in an operation involving more than five towing vehicles”.
According to exclusive site Vessel Finder, the Singapore-flagged tanker, 250 meters long and 45 meters wide, was heading towards the Saudi port of Yanbu.
This is the first time a ship has blocked the strategic canal since the Ever Given, a large container ship of around 200,000 tons, ran aground on the east bank of the canal during a sandstorm in March 2021.
Stranded throughout, it blocked for days the traffic route between Europe and Asia, which sees 10% of the world’s maritime trade pass through. The rescue operation lasted six days and cost the life of an SCA agent.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi approved a plan in May to widen and deepen the southern part of the canal where the ship got stuck.
According to the SCA, Egypt lost between 12 and 15 million dollars a day in the closure, while insurers estimated losses of billions of dollars a day for global maritime trade.
In July the Suez Canal announced a record $7 billion profit for the 2021-2022 fiscal year after repeatedly raising ship transit fees.
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