A project to expand parts of the Suez Canal is due to be completed after two years of work in July 2023, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said on Sunday.
SCA has announced accelerated plans to extend a second channel and widen an existing channel after the container ship Ever Given ran aground and blocked the waterway for six days in 2021.
“The project will be completed in 24 months. We started in July 2021 and God willing we will finish in July 2023,” President Osama Rabie said during an event in Dubai.
Ships pass through the channel in convoys, and the extension of the second runway would increase capacity by six ships, Rabie said, without elaborating.
The southernmost 30km of the channel, where the Ever Given ran aground, is to be widened 40 meters to the east and deepened to 72 feet by 66 feet, according to previously announced plans.
“This will improve ship navigation by 28% in this difficult part of the channel,” Rabie said.
The Suez Canal Authority and its companies are developing the entire project, he said.
Asked about shipments of Iranian fuel or oil passing through the Suez Canal despite US sanctions on Iranian oil sales, he said: “There is no discrimination when it comes to a country flag on ships, and Iranian oil passes through the channel”.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai and Sarah El Safty in Cairo)
Reference: CNN Brasil
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