CAIRO— A super tanker that blocked the Suez Canal is heading back to
Asia, authorities said, five months after it became wedged across the vital
waterway and crippled world trade.
اضافة اعلان
The MV Ever Given had "successfully crossed" the canal after
unloading its cargo in Britain and was now on its way to China, Suez Canal
Authority chief Osama Rabie said on Friday.
Rabie said that the vessel's passage on Friday was overseen by
"senior" guides of the authority.
The vessel was seen sailing in open waters accompanied by Egypt-flagged
tugboats in aerial video footage posted on the SCA's Twitter account.
The Ever Given — a behemoth with deadweight tonnage of 199,000 — got stuck
diagonally across the canal during a sandstorm on March 23.
A round-the-clock salvage operation took six days to dislodge it.
After it was freed, Egypt seized the ship and demanded compensation from
owners Shoei Kisen Kaisha for lost canal revenues, salvage costs and damage to
the waterway.
The Taiwanese-operated vessel steamed out of the Suez last month after the
Japanese owners reached a compensation deal with Egypt.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly but Egypt had originally
demanded more than $900 million in compensation, which it later reduced to $550
million.
One employee of the SCA was killed during the rescue operation.
In May, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi approved a two-year project
to widen and deepen the southern part of the waterway where the ship ran
aground to avoid any repetition of the crisis.
Egypt, which takes a toll from ships traversing the canal, said the crisis
cost it as much as $15 million per day, while maritime insurers estimated the
hit to world trade to be in the billions.
Last month, the SCA's Rabie said the canal netted Egypt a record $5.84
billion in the last tax year, despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on
world trade plus the cargo ship's blockage.
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