Two new gigantic tugboats “Abdel Hamid Youssef” and “Mustafa Mahmoud” would join the tugging maneuvers after the completion of their construction in Port Said Shipyard (PSS)
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has given orders for preparations to be made to unload the Ever Given cargo carrier blocking the Suez Canal since Tuesday, Chairman of Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Osama Rabie told Extranews channel Sunday.
Rabei also said Sunday that tireless efforts were being exerted round the clock to refloat the giant container MV Ever Given, through carrying out dredging works and tugging maneuvers.
He said strong winds were “not the only cause” of the Ever Given running aground, adding that an earlier investigation was ongoing but did not rule out human or technical errors.
Two new gigantic tugboats “Abdel Hamid Youssef” and “Mustafa Mahmoud” would join the tugging maneuvers after the completion of their construction in Port Said Shipyard (PSS), with a force of 70 tonnes, Rabei said.
The massive Ever Given, a Panama-flagged vessel carrying cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground in vital waterway on Tuesday.
Rabei said he could not predict when the ship might be dislodged. A Dutch salvage firm is attempting to refloat the vessel with tugboats and dredgers, taking advantage of high tides.
About 14 tugboats, including “Baraka 1” and “Izzat Adel”, were trying to refloat the ship, the SCA chairman said.
Rabei said that the results of the dredging works by the SCA’s Mashour dredger have so far reached up to 27,000 cubic metres of sand, at a depth of 18 metres.
He had earlier noted that Ever Given was not the largest container vessel to cross the Suez Canal to date. A ship carrying 240,000 tonnes passed through the canal before, he said.
Dredging work continues to remove the sand surrounding the bow of the vessel to facilitate the floatation process, along with pulling maneuvers by the SCA’s tugboats at times commensurate with the tide and wind direction.
Some 9,000 tonnes of ballast water had been already removed from the vessel, the canal chairman said.
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