The Ever Given remains stuck in the Suez Canal for a fourth day, blocking nearly $10 billion in goods and causing some ships to reroute around the Horn of Africa.
The container ship, which is longer than the Eiffel Tower, ran aground following a dust storm Tuesday. Over 200 ships are blocked from traversing the key waterway.
Another effort to dislodge the ship failed on Friday. A Dutch salvage team was dispatched to the scene. Now the U.S. Navy will send dredging experts there as soon as Saturday to offer options for freeing the stuck tanker, sources told CNN.
And as ships consider rerouting to avoid the blockage, the Navy’s Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain told the Financial Times that several shipping companies have reached out to the Navy about piracy concerns.
The waters off Somalia in East Africa have long been a hotspot for pirates. But threats are growing in West Africa as well. Earlier this month, shipping giant Maersk asked for military help against pirates in the Gulf of Guinea.
Meanwhile, global supply chains are feeling more pressure. Here’s a look at some of the supplies affected by the blockage:
Toilet paper, the world’s hottest commodity in 2020, had finally returned to shelves coronavirus pandemic stockpiling eased. But prices for shipping containers have soared in recent months. Companies have delayed shipments of key goods as they wait for available containers.
The Suez Canal blockage is only making the container problem worse and could upend shipping schedules well into the future.
Walter Schalka, the CEO of Suzano SA, told Bloomberg that the Brazilian company was already exporting less pulp than expected this month. He warned that toilet paper supplies could be hit if producers don’t have enough pulp in their inventories. Suzano supplies about one-third of the world’s hardwood pulp needed to make toilet paper.
Read rest here: https://www.investors.com/news/suez-canal-shipping-toilet-paper-oil-ikea-car-parts/
If there was ever ever a case for using a small to medium yield fission, augmented fission or fusion nuclear weapon to create or widen a canal? While simultaneously fixing a global shipping problem instantly? This is it. Fall out? Who cares? It’s the Middle Eastern desert and the local Eastern Mediterranean Countries. Who gives two s**ts about anybody within a 500 mile radius of that “shit hole”? Seems like a Win-Win.