SCA holds press conference Saturday to announce latest efforts to refloat Ever Given Vessel

CAIRO - 27 March 2021: The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) will hold a press conference on Sunday at 2:00 pm (Cairo time), during which SCA chairperson Lieutenant General Osama Rabei will comment on the latest developments regarding the SCA efforts to refloat the Japanese-owned Ever Given vessel, which ran around in the canal five days ago, the SCA announced in a statement.

 

The Ever Given ship, 400 meters long, 59 meters wide, and with a capacity of 224,000 tons ran aground due to bad weather and sandstorm and wedged diagonally across the canal since March 24, 2021. Being stranded in the canal, the Ever Given ship resulted in the suspension of the international maritime trade through the canal.

 

The SCA announced on Friday resuming efforts to re-float the ship, using 9 gigantic tugboats, including "Baraka 1" and "Izzat Adel", after the completion of the dredging work near the vessel’s bow using "Mashhour" dredge.

 

Rabie further explained that the tugging process requires several factors, including the wind direction and the tidal state, which makes it a ‘complex technical process’ with very unique procedures and multiple attempts.

 

In a previous statement earlier Friday, SCA announced dredging 17,000 cubic meters of sand and mud by Mashhour dredger around the Ever Given ship’s bow, with a rate of dredging reached about 87 percent.