The most common option for ships trying to avoid the logjam is to reroute themselves around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
[Update: After nearly a week, the Ever Given, the mammoth container ship stuck in the Suez Canal, has been freed.] As the world absorbed the reality that the Suez Canal will almost certainly remain blocked for at least several more days, hundreds of ships stuck at both ends of the channel on Friday began contemplating a far more expensive alternative: forsaking the channel and heading the long way around Africa. A journey from the Suez Canal in Egypt to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands — Europe’s largest port — typically takes about 11 days. Venturing south around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope adds at least 26 more days, according to Refinitiv, the financial data company. The additional fuel charges for the journey generally run more than $30,000 per day, depending on the vessel, or more than $800,000 total for the longer trip. But the other option is sitting at the entrance of the canal and waiting for the mother of all floating traffic jams to dissipate, while incurring so-called demurrage charges — late fees for cargo — that range from $15,000 to $30,000 per day. “You are either stuck with the commodity and waiting for things to evolve, or you take the cost and you move your commodity, and you free up your ship,” said Amrit Singh, lead shipping analyst at Refinitiv in London. “People have started making decisions.” Since Tuesday, the Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships, has been stuck in the Suez Canal horizontally, run aground by powerful winds. The disruption now roiling the global shipping industry provides a reminder of why the Suez Canal was constructed in the first place. Only the Panama Canal looms as large in the transport of goods around the planet. Virtually every container ship making the journey from the factories of Asia to the affluent consumer markets of Europe passes through the channel.
