Tugboats helped an oil tanker that was briefly stranded in the Suez Canal in Egypt, on Wednesday night (31), after a technical failure in its rudder, informed the Suez Canal Authority (SCA in English).
The 252-metre vessel, Affinity V, drifted to obstruct the southern section of the canal while traveling in a convoy of ships at around 2pm GMT, canal sources said.
SCA sources said shortly after 7pm that traffic was back to normal.
The incident took place on the same single-lane stretch of canal where a giant cargo ship, the Ever Given, ran aground in March 2021 and was stranded for six days, disrupting global trade.
According to the tanker tracking service TankerTrackers, the Aframax Affinity V tanker appeared to have lost control as it headed south.
“It temporarily obstructed traffic and is now facing south again, but moving slowly by tug assistance,” TankerTrackers said on Twitter shortly after news of the operation broke.
SCA released a video showing its chairman, Osama Rabie, in a control room where the team was working to resolve the issue, and footage of the tanker being escorted through the canal by tugboats.
On Thursday morning, ship tracking data from Refinitiv and the website Marine Traffic showed that Affinity V had passed through the channel and was in the Gulf of Suez.
The Singapore-flagged tanker was heading to the Red Sea port of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, the tracking websites said.
After Ever Given ran aground, SCA announced accelerated plans to expand the canal, including extending a second canal that allows ships to pass in both directions along part of its course and deepening an existing canal.
Expansion works are expected to be completed in 2023.
(Writer: Aidan Lewis; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Himani Sarkar and David Goodman)
Source: CNN Brasil
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