Two tankers collide in Suez Canal sparking pile-up fears in key trade route
Two tankers collided in the Suez Canal, sparking fears of a huge pile-up in the key global trade lane.
Tug operations were mobilised to clear the blockage that happened shortly after midnight on Wednesday. According to Marine Traffic eyewitnesses have the tankers involved in the collision were the Burri, a Cayman island tanker, and the BW Lesmes, a Singapore flagged LNG tanker.
Later reports said that the authorities in Egypt had successfully moved the two vessels to the side of the canal to allow for the movement of other boats. It is not yet known what impact the collision has had on vessels waiting to cross the major international shipping lane.
It comes after another ship ran aground, sparking fears of a blockage in May this year. That ship was identified as 13-year old Xin Hai Tong 23, a 189m-long bulk carrier sailing under the flag of Hong Kong.
In 2021 the 400-metre long Ever Given became jammed diagonally across a southern section of the canal in high winds for six days, halting shipping traffic on what is the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.
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More than 20,000 tonnes of sand had to be removed by dredgers, while 14 tugboats were deployed to use high tides to shift the Japanese-owned ship. At the time it was estimated by Lloyd's List that the stranded vessel was holding up $400m an hour in trade.
Peter Berdowski, boss of the salvage firm Boskalis who were tasked with shifting the ship, praised the "unprecedented" pressure his team had been working under after it was feared it would be stuck on the banks of the canal for weeks.
The canal, which is just 200m wide at its narrowest point runs between Port Said in the Mediterranean Sea and Suez in the Red Sea. Around 30% of the world's shipping container volume passes through the canal and a staggering 12% of total global trade.
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