Who Will Bear the Cost of the Suez Blockage?

After hauling its 220,000-ton bulk down the Suez Canal a week after blocking the essential waterway, the Ever Given container ship is likely to become the centre of a protracted battle over who will pay for its rescue. The 400-metre-long vessel was aground on the banks of the Suez Canal for a week, causing an estimated £7bn loss each day in trade owing to ships stuck on either side, and up to £10.9m a day for the canal. “We managed to refloat the ship in record time. If such a crisis had occurred anywhere else in the world, it would have taken three months to be solved,” said Osama Rabie, the head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA). But questions about who will walk the plank financially are likely to entangle insurers and investigators, possibly for years. Investigators boarded the ship, now at anchor in the nearby Great Bitter Lake, on Tuesday, to find answers on what caused the grounding and who is ultimately responsible.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN