Suez Canal blocked briefly as container ship runs aground

IkmoIkmo 4 years ago |

Was this another close call major issue indicating a new pattern, or was this one of tens of minor incidents that typically happened in Suez and didn't get reported on until Ever Given?

Not that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive but it's likely leaning hard towards one of the two.

lindenstark 4 years ago | |

Only around ~75 incidents reported this decade [0], so it's fairly uncommon. Definitely getting more attention now because of last time though.

[0] (slightly outdated) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/suez-bloc...

kbutler 4 years ago | | |

75/decade == 1 every 7 weeks

Sounds pretty common, or as the grandparent said, "tens of minor incidents that...didn't get reported on"

lindenstark 4 years ago | | |

when put into perspective that is pretty frequent, ~0.02% chance per ship.

lavoiems 4 years ago | | |

Put differently, we had an average of 7.5 incidents per year in the last decade.

lindenstark 4 years ago | | |

ya, I wonder what the risk is of getting stuck long term like earlier this year. According to the wikipedia page it looks like it has only happened a few times in history.

KoftaBob 4 years ago |

"They said it took 15 minutes for tug boats swiftly dispatched to the site to refloat the vessel and allow south-bound vessels stuck behind it to resume their journey.

“It was a minor traffic issue that was resolved in less than an hour,” a senior Suez Canal official told The National on condition of anonymity.

Since the 'Ever Given' incident, the canal authority have announced a multi-billion dollar project to widen sections of the canal and install other infrastructure to ensure that no other large ships can run aground in the same manner again."

Glad to see that it was resolved quickly, and that the canal is being upgraded to make it more resilient to things like that.

anshumankmr 4 years ago |

I am looking forward to the memes.

On a more serious note, I hope it is resolved ASAP.

EDIT: Looks like it has been resolved https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/egypt/2021/09/09/breaki...

lindenstark 4 years ago | |

that was fast, updated title.

zarq 4 years ago |

Have the worldwide trade delays from the blockage with the Ever Given been resolved?

asdff 4 years ago | |

The delays are happening at every interface. The port of LA/LB is the busiest port in north America and has dozens and dozens of container ships anchored off the coast waiting to unload. Even if they unloaded the ships today they couldn't move the containers off the terminal holding facilities since freight rail and freight trucking is at capacity. This is why caltrans has been desperate to widen freeways leading to the port and link the 710 in Pasadena, and to expand the alameda freight rail corridor. Freeway widening doesn't help commute times any but it leads to more trucks per hour leaving the port due to the increased throughput, which is only going to get busier over the next century.

gbear605 4 years ago | |

From my understanding, the direct delays are resolved (ships are moving normally through the canal) but there are global delays that could be indirectly caused by the Ever Given or lots of other issues (understaffing at ports, closed ports in China due to COVID, high shipping demand, etc.). It’s hard to say whether the current delays would be a lot better if the Ever Given incident hadn’t occurred, although they presumably would be at least somewhat better.

karaterobot 4 years ago | |

The delays caused by that specific blockage may have been resolved, but overall shipping delays continue to rise, as they were even before Ever Given. One big driver for that is ports being closed in China due to workers getting sick with Delta, but also just general lack of manpower related to the quarantine.

beaudin 4 years ago |

I have a mentor who was prominent in the ship holding space and as with technology, requirements as well as desire for cost savings (bigger ships) is taking place while the infrastructure (canal) has had minimal change. It’s the classic bottleneck/theory of constraints principle. Watching to see how the canal adapts/evolves.

gremloni 4 years ago |

Did this happen a lot and are we just hearing about it now or do we have worse ship pilots now?

styluss 4 years ago |

Was blocked

keyboardCowBoy 4 years ago |

There's still more Biden money to go around.