More than three months after one of the world’s largest container ships blocked the Suez Canal, the vessel, the Ever Given, finally began its journey out on Wednesday, after Egyptian authorities reached a compensation agreement with the ship’s owners.
The ship had been impounded and was sitting, with many of its crew onboard, in part of the Suez Canal known as Great Bitter Lakes as the Suez Canal Authority and the ship’s Japanese owner were embroiled in a protracted argument over losses.
Its departure ends a saga that began March 23, with the grounded ship disrupting the global supply chain and drawing in insurers, lawyers, shipping bodies and much of the internet.
The ship was refloated after six days of nonstop efforts, but reaching a deal to let the ship leave was an “operation of a different kind,” said Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, at a ceremony on the eastern bank of the canal on Wednesday that was attended by Masaki Noke, Japan’s ambassador to Egypt.
The negotiations over the ship’s fate “began with the aim of preserving the Suez Canal’s rights after the losses it has suffered from the halt in maritime traffic,” Rabie said.
The ship’s first stop was nearby Port Said where its hull was being inspected as a precaution before departing Egypt, according to a company statement from the ship’s technical manager, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement.
Details of the settlement were not released, but the UK P&I Club, one of the ship’s insurers, said they had been “focused on reaching a fair and amicable settlement” and had “worked closely” with the Suez Canal Authority to finally find consensus.
With nearly 20,000 containers aboard, the Ever Given had been bound for Rotterdam in the Netherlands when high winds and poor visibility led it to run aground on March 23. The authorities worked for days, removing rock and sand before it was successfully refloated on March 29.
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