The news of the disruption of navigation in the Egyptian Suez Canal sparked local and international concern, after a giant container tanker diverted and blocked one of the most important and overcrowded shipping lanes in the world.

With the passage of time since the giant ship ran aground on Tuesday evening, concern began to grow about the fate of the global trade artery and Egypt's economic artery, and the fate of the overcrowded column of ships.

Egyptian specialists and experts who spoke to Al-Jazeera Net rely on the experiences of the Suez Canal Authority in dealing with the problem surrounding the most important waterway in the world.

However, they stressed their inability to estimate the size of the problem and its repercussions in the absence of official data from the authority about the time that the giant container carrier will take to float.

In this regard, a member of the advisory team for the former Suez Canal Development Project told Al-Jazeera Net that "Egypt has locomotives and ready-made equipment and extensive experience in dealing with such sudden crises."

The member, who preferred not to be named, added that disrupting the conduit may cause damage to the stream, and may require some time to repair it;

But it will not take days, as is rumored.

The Suez Canal Authority website on Facebook was empty of any new news related to the movement of the canal.

Except for the news of 8 giant locomotives attempting to float the huge container ship, while the Egyptian government has not issued any statement at the time of writing this report.

The authority’s statement stated that, immediately after the accident caused by the lack of visibility and the intensity of the wind speed and then the ship’s stranding, a Crisis Management Committee was formed, and that the current rescue operations are seeking to float the ship and resume navigation in the canal.

Huge trade volume

About 12% of the global trade volume passes through the canal that connects Europe and Asia, and the east to the west, and is the shortest route between the continents of the ancient world.

The Panamanian container ship "EVER GIVEN" follows the shipping line "EVER GREEN", and it is one of the largest cargo ships in the world, with a tonnage of 224 thousand tons, and a length of 400 meters and a width of 59 meters, according to the authority's website .

The stranded giant ship was heading to Rotterdam when the hull skewed in the waterway and hit the bottom, according to the Taiwanese charter company Evergreen.

The Suez Canal Authority said, on Wednesday, that it is working to float the container ship, which ran aground due to bad weather, which resulted in strong winds and a dust storm.

With the aim of easing the bottleneck in the narrow shipping lane, the authority decided to reopen the old canal in order to divert traffic to it, amid real fears that the corridor would remain closed for an unknown time.

About 12% of the global trade volume passes through the Suez Canal (Reuters)

How is Egypt affected and global trade affected

Since the ship ran aground and confined it between the two sides of the canal, there began to be talk about the repercussions of the crisis, whether on the global shipping movement or its impact on the Egyptian economy, and the revenues of the Suez Canal were negatively affected.

Every hour of delay will aggravate the situation, according to the official figures of the Suez Canal Authority in 2020, as about 19 thousand ships with a net tonnage of 1.17 billion tons crossed the Suez Canal at an average of 51.5 ships per day.

30% of global container ship capacity passes through the Suez Canal, according to Liner Research's data.

This volume is translated by the numbers into 4,710 container ships, which passed during the year 2020 despite the decrease in the demand for goods, as a result of the closures and embargoes imposed by most countries of the world in the face of the repercussions of the Corona virus.

This is at the level of global trade;

But what about its economic impact on Egypt?

According to official data, it generated 5.61 billion dollars for the state treasury in 2020, down from 5.8 billion dollars in 2019.

Why should the world be concerned

Experts and economic analysts expected that global trade and the Egyptian economy would suffer great losses if the stoppage extended in the global shipping course for several days.

"Reuters" agency (Reuters) quoted Tan Hwa Ju, a consultant at Liner Research, that stopping navigation for a long time would have dire consequences.

Because the alternative route around the continent of Africa takes an extra week.

The economic expert, Ahmed Zikr Allah, confirmed that the impact of the accident on trade movement and its financial impact on Egypt depends on the time period that the floatation will take, and he considered in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the disruption of the stream for more than a day raises a lot of local and international concern about the most important corridor My navigation in the world, and the delay in issuing official data and following up on global markets;

So it raises many question marks.

He added that the closure of the canal is not expected to continue for long in light of the world's interest in the accident, noting that the canal provides revenues of between 5 and 6 billion dollars annually, which is a large number in light of the suspension of tourism, and the damage to hard currency sources in Egypt by the Corona pandemic.

The bad weather conditions that Egypt is going through these days have led to the closure of many sea ports, such as Bogaz Al-Arish, according to the statement of the Media Office of the Suez Canal Economic Zone, in addition to the closure of the port of Ain Sokhna of the Economic Zone, with work continuing so far in the ports of Adabiya and East and West Port Said. , Normally.

About 30% of the capacity of global container ships pass through the Suez Canal (communication sites)

In 2019, Egypt celebrated the 150th anniversary of the digging of the Suez Canal, which is 193 kilometers long, starting from Port Said Port and ending with Suez, linking the Red and Mediterranean Bahrain.

The Suez Canal, which was dug by a million citizens, or about a quarter of the population of Egypt at the time, was officially opened on November 17, 1869, after experiencing many cruises since 1867.

In 2015, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi adopted an ambitious project by digging a new branch called the "New Suez Canal" that cost the state treasury about $ 8 billion, amid widespread criticism of a project whose opponents see that it has proven "economically unfeasible."

Although five years have passed since its inauguration, the "New Suez Canal" has not achieved increases in revenues.

However, Egyptian officials confirmed that it had reduced the crossing time of the canal in half, from 22 hours to 11 hours, and assisted in the transit of giant container carriers and giant oil tankers with a load of 200 thousand tons.