Boxships begin to divert from Suez Canal

With the Suez Canal set to remain blocked for at least another day or two, shipping companies are being forced to confront the spectre of taking the far longer route around the Cape of Good Hope to get to Europe or the east coast of North America.

Data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence AIS tracking indicates that the first containership to do this is Evergreen’s Ever Greet (IMO9832729), a sistership to Ever Given (IMO: 9811000) the vessel that ran aground in the canal on Tuesday.

The Suez Canal-bound Ever Greet, a containership of the same size and capacity as the blocked Ever Given, is now appearing to divert around the Cape of Good Hope.

The diversion was noted around 1030 hrs London time on March 25, just hours after attempts to refloat Ever Given at the Suez Canal failed.

Ever Greet appears to be the first containership seen changing course as the vessel tailback lengthens at both entrances of the Suez canal, reaching more than 216 ships after three days’ closure.

The route around the Cape takes an additional 12 days to Europe, with any diversion based on calculations that delays to clear the canal will take more time than the longer voyage.

Nevertheless, Maurice Storey, honorary chairman of Evergreen Marine (UK), told Lloyd’s List that discussions were still taking place in Taipei about whether or not to divert Europe-bound ships round southern Africa.

He said he would not be surprised to see ships re-routed.

However, by late Thursday afternoon UK time, “no decision” had been made, Mr Storey said.

Earlier today, a number of other container lines indicated that they had not yet decided whether to divert or not.

Maersk, which has nine of its own vessels affected by the closure of the canal, along with two of its 2M alliance partner Mediterranean Shipping Co, said estimated times of arrival would be “jeopardised” as salvage efforts continued.

“We are closely following the refloating operations and will do our upmost to mitigate the delay as best as we can,” the carrier said.

Hapag-Lloyd, which has five vessels directly affected, said it was monitoring the situation to follow the implications on its services.

“We are presently looking into possible vessel diversions around Cape of Good Hope,” it said.

Evergreen’s Ocean Alliance partner CMA CGM also said it was monitoring the situation daily, and had two ships waiting to enter the canal.

“We are closely following the steps taken by the Suez Canal authorities, who are doing their utmost to resolve the situation quickly,” it said.

“For the time being, the group is not considering rerouting ships”.