The giant tanker closed the Suez Canal for about 20 minutes late on Wednesday, raising fears of a traffic disruption similar to that seen in early 2021, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said, confirming official press reports of the event.

The oil tanker Affinity V ran aground and blocked the passage for about 20 minutes, a source close to the Egyptian security services told AFP. A source close to ADS previously told Reuters that the vessel has now been released, is moving slowly with the help of tugs and vessel traffic is starting to recover.

The channel is one of the busiest maritime trade routes in the world. It connects Europe with Asia and passes through it about 10% of the goods that are traded on a global scale by sea.

The tanker with a displacement of 64,000 tons was freed thanks to the intervention of “more than five” tugboats, ADS said.

The Singapore-flagged tanker is 250 meters long and 45 meters wide and is bound for the Red Sea port of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, according to Vessel Finder, a specialized website.

The incident is the first of its kind since the nearly 200,000-tonne container ship Ever Given blocked a canal for days when it ran aground during a sandstorm in March 2021. The operation to retrieve it lasted six days and claimed the life of an ADS worker.

The incident on Wednesday occurred in the same southern part of the canal.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in May approved a plan to widen and deepen the southern part of the canal. The projects are expected to be completed by 2023.

According to ADS data, Egypt was losing between $12 million and $15 million each day of the closure. Insurers have calculated that the losses amount to several billion dollars a day.

In July, the FDA announced a record $7 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2021-2022 after raising shipping fees several times.

Source: RES-IPE