The ship, which was stuck in the Suez Canal of Egypt, one of world’s most important shipping routes, is now floating again.
Leth Shipping Agency reports that the ship is a 189m long bulk carrier, built in 2010, and sailing under the Hong Kong flag.
The carrier is now heading to the Suez Gulf on its own power, after two tugs successfully repositioned it.
It appeared that at one time, four other vessels were stuck behind the vessel.
The Suez Canal connects Port Said, also known as Bur Sa’id (on the Mediterranean Sea), with Suez (al Suways), on the Red Sea.
The narrowest part of the pier is only 200m wide, a characteristic that has previously caused ships problems.
In 2021 the Ever Given was stuck for six full days after it struck the bank of a single lane section near the southern entrance of the canal, about 3.7 miles from the city of Suez.
The ship was on its way to Rotterdam, the Dutch port. Its grounding created chaos in the shipping industry which is already facing pressure due to COVID-19 supply chain issues.
Lloyd’s List estimated that the container ship was stranded was holding up $400m in trade per hour.
Shipping data and news company estimated the canal’s eastbound and westbound traffic to be around $4.5bn and $5.1bn respectively.
The canal is responsible for about 30% of all shipping containers in the world, and 12% of global trade.
According to the World Economic Forum, the popularity of the canal route can be attributed to the fact that a ship does not have to travel around Africa’s southern tip. This would add 3,315 miles to a trip between Tokyo and Rotterdam.
After running aground on the canal , a container vessel loaded with over 65,000 tonnes corn from Ukraine was floated in January.
A tanker of oil also ran aground on a stretch of canal with only one lane in August last year. It blocked the canal for five hours.
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