Suez Canal Blockage

[After 61 Years It is Happening Again]

Back in the 60s, the Suez Canal was blocked for as much as 8 years and the crews of the ships that ended stuck there, staged regattas, played football, and issued their postage stamps.

How did it happen?

In hot June 1967, due to the war between Israel and several Arab countries, Egyptian troops quickly blocked the Suez Canal on both sides, flooding a bunch of old ships there and generously “sprinkling” the whole thing with sea mines.

At the moment when the Egyptian army was eagerly blocking the channel, 15 merchant ships could not pass through it. Their crews realized that they had nowhere to go, so 14 of them anchored in the widest part of the canal – the area of the Big Bitter Lake.

These were ships from all over the world: from the US, Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, France, Poland, Bulgaria, and even Czechoslovakia.

Their holds were filled with all sorts of things: from trendy T-shirts and children’s toys for Woolworths stores to Australian pigs and cowhides from Ethiopia.

What faced the crew?

Crews of the ships quickly organized themselves and formed the “Association of the Big Bitter Lake.”The sailors had fun as they could: they organized regattas on lifeboats, played football on the deck of the largest ship, and on others, they organized an impromptu cinema, a swimming pool, and something like a cathedral. It’s ok, services were held for representatives of different religions 🙂

It is worth saying that the sailors did not sit around all these years on their ships. In 1969, the ship owning companies managed to take out most of the crews and after that they worked on a rotational basis, arriving at Big Bitter Lake for three months

The participants of this event met in 2017 for the 50th anniversary in Liverpool, Germany, and Slovakia.

What happens today with Suez Canal and how it affects the supply chain? 

The shipping vessel under the Panama flag, owed by Japanese Company and Operated by Evergreen a Taiwanese shipping line was en route to the Rotterdam port in the Netherlands, when it was knocked off course and grounded herself on the sand bank

Today we have a new example that it is happening again, the blackout of the Evergiven caused a delay in the traffic by 30%.

According to data from Lloyd’s list. The Suez Canal blockage roughly cost 12 per cent of global trade and was holding up trade valued at over $9 billion per day, This is equivalent to $400 million worth of trade per hour or $6.7 million per minute!. Since the Evergiven had blocked the narrow canal for six days, the total trade loss has been estimated at roughly $54 billion. However, this figure is based on just the cargo shipments that were halted or delayed due to the blockage and does not reflect other losses incurred.

Despite the technological advancement and complex structures, the supply chain process can be easily disrupted by such unforeseen events.

Imagine what would have happened if the canal was blocked for 8 years nowadays ?