Egypt plans expansion of Suez Canal

[divider style=”solid” top=”25″ bottom=”25″][dropcap]T[/dropcap]he southern section of the Suez canal where  Ever Given wedged sideways, blocking a key waterway and causing billions of dollars worth of damage to global trade will be expanded, head of  Suez Canal Authority (SCA), Osama Rabie has said.

Under the expansion project, the southernmost area of the canal, which is currently 30m long, will be widened by about 40m to the east.

The expansion will take around two years, Rabie said.

The Suez Canal, an artificial sea-level waterway, is one of the world’s most heavily used shipping lanes , facilitating about 12% of all global trade.

Ever Given, the Panama-flagged vessel, owned by Japanese ship-leasing company Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. and operated by Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp., became wedged in the canal on March 23, causing disruption to global traffic, before it was finally freed six days later.

The blockage forced more than 400 ships to stall in and around the canal, one of the world’s heaviest shipping lanes linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

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