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Suez Canal: This is how hard the "Ever Given" accident hits the global economy

2021-03-26T16:13:34.930Z


A container ship has been paralyzing the Suez Canal for days. The first shipping companies are redirecting their freighters - and accepting thousands of kilometers of detour. Global supply chains are disrupted and the industry fears weeks of chaos.


Enlarge image

Container freighter "Ever Given" in the Suez Canal

Photo: - / dpa

The desperation at the Suez Canal grows with every flood.

The rescue teams tried six times during floods to get rid of Ever Given, which had run aground since Tuesday.

But they also failed on Friday morning.

The 400-meter-long giant container is still stuck diagonally in the canal.

And blocks the most important waterway between Asia and Europe.

The bottleneck of the supply of goods is blocked.

Now the Dutch should fix it.

A team from the Rotterdam salvage specialist Smit has been flown in;

a special dredger sucks up thousands of cubic meters of sand to expose the freighter.

At the same time, fuel is to be pumped out of the freighter's belly to make it lighter.

How long will the rescue operation take?

Will it succeed in the end?

Uncertain.

It is now clear, however, that the accident caused massive economic collateral damage.

Far beyond the shipping industry.

It also affects industrial companies whose production depends on parts and preliminary products arriving on time.

And end consumers, especially in Europe, will have to be prepared for delayed deliveries of goods from the Far East;

maybe on one or the other empty shelf.

Europe's largest insurer Allianz assumes in a study that a persistent blockade of the Suez Canal would cost six to ten billion dollars every week.

Enlarge image

This excavator is several meters high and weighs tons.

Next to the "Ever Given" it looks like a toy.

Photo: - / dpa

According to the Bloomberg news agency, 185 ships have accumulated in front of the two canal entrances.

Even if the Ever Given got off before the weekend, it would take several days to clear the constipation.

But it doesn't look like that.

The big ship operators are now seriously considering taking thousands of kilometers of detours around Africa instead of waiting longer before the canal entrances for liberation.

“Two days ago we thought there would be a solution soon.

But it seems to be dragging on, ”said Nils Haupt from the leading German container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd to SPIEGEL.

"We're close to making the decision to go around the Cape of Good Hope."

Five Hapag-Lloyd ships alone are currently waiting to pass through the canal.

These freighters could possibly be diverted towards the Cape of Good Hope on Friday - as could those of Hapag-Lloyd's alliance partners Yang Ming from Taiwan, ONE from Singapore and Hyundai.

A Hyundai freighter has already changed course: the "HMM Rotterdam".

She is on her way from London to Singapore.

On the website "Marine Traffic" you can see that the container giant first steered through the Strait of Gibraltar in the direction of the Mediterranean, but then turned abruptly - and is now traveling around North Africa.

The world's largest container shipping company Maersk is also considering ordering at least parts of the fleet via the Cape of Good Hope.

"We are currently calculating and reviewing all options," a company spokeswoman told SPIEGEL on Friday.

No decision has yet been made.

For customers who are in a particularly hurry, Maersk is checking, according to the spokeswoman, whether the goods can alternatively be transported to them by train or plane.

Provided the clients pay for it themselves.

Otherwise it means: wait.

According to Maersk, the detour via the Cape of Good Hope takes between five and eight days on the Western Europe-East Asia route and is around 3000 nautical miles long (a good 5500 kilometers).

The additional costs are still reasonably bearable for the shipowners: A large container ship burns between 80 and 100 tons of marine diesel a day, but this quickly adds up to 250,000 euros in additional costs for fuel alone.

In return, however, the similarly high canal fees do not apply.

Enlarge image

Ships accumulate in front of the southern entrance to the Suez Canal on March 25, 2021

Photo: Planet Labs Inc.

The industry, its customers and end users are likely to be hit much harder by the emerging cascade of problems in global freight transport.

There is a risk of further blockages in many destination ports if the delayed freighters from the Suez Canal and punctual ships from other origins arrive at the same time.

At the same time, the schedules of the liner shipping companies get completely mixed up.

That means: the return transports are also delayed - especially those of empty containers, which have been in short supply in many Asian ports for months.

If there are no more containers for the goods, further delays are programmed.

Or even complete delivery failures.

Are the supply chains breaking?

According to an estimate by industry experts at Lloyd's List, quoted by the Bloomberg news service, goods worth around 9.6 billion US dollars (around 8 billion euros) are transported through the channel on normal days.

Even before the accident, the situation in global container traffic was tense.

Many ships going west are full to the brim because the demand in Europe and Asia for goods from the Far East is so great.

"We are currently transporting large quantities of consumer goods: furniture, fitness equipment, yoga mats, bicycles, do-it-yourself equipment, entertainment electronics, washing machines, toasters," says Hapag-Lloyd spokesman Haupt.

The rush of consumers for such goods is a result of the pandemic: instead of going to restaurants, cinemas or clubs, many people are spending their money to refurbish their homes.

But the longer the traffic jam on the Suez Canal lasts, the greater the risk that some of these goods will become scarce, at least temporarily.

Automobile manufacturers in Europe could also get into a mess.

The industry operates with just-in-time supply chains, warn analysts from the rating agency Moody's.

They often have only small stocks of components and are dependent on deliveries of these components from Asia.

The chemical industry is already hit.

According to the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI), around 16 percent of German chemical imports and 18 percent of exports go by ship through the waterway.

"In the chemical industry and its industrial customers, the supply chains from Asia are currently interrupted," the dpa news agency quotes VCI chief economist Henrik Meincke.

This leads to bottlenecks in important preliminary products.

"If the Suez Canal is not cleared at the weekend, the situation will deteriorate significantly," said Meincke.

With the next floods - the next flood is on Friday evening around 10 p.m. local time - the rescue teams will probably start new attempts.

In the hope of their high-tech equipment - and the help of nature.

Because on the weekend there is a full moon;

the tides will be more pronounced for the next few days.

Maybe a few inches more water will make all the difference.

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-03-26

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