The area of the canal between the city of Suez and Bitter
Lakes will be widened by 131 feet eastwards and deepened from 66 feet to 72
feet.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi approved the expansion of the
southern end of the canal on 11 May 2021 after a visit to the Suez Canal
Authority (SCA) headquarters in Ismailia, Egypt.
In a television address, the SCA Chairman Osama Rabie said
the expansion will lead to “improvements in the ability of the SCA and the
captain of any ship to navigate inside the canal”.
It will be the second such expansion of the Suez Canal in
recent years. In 2015 the northern end was widened and deepened to maintain its
status as a major shipping lane.
The obstruction in March led some experts to suggest that
the canal was not capable of receiving the largest vessels in the world, some
of which can carry more than 22,000 TEU, and that an expansion was needed to
prevent a similar blockage in the future.
However, Lars Jensen, CEO, Vespucci Maritime, told PTI that
the blockage did not cause the SCA to expand the canal but rather made
accelerate its plans.
“It [the obstruction] did not in itself imply there was a
larger structural risk involved. There are no indications that vessels ‘have
gotten too large’ as some have speculated.
“An expansion of the Canal is therefore mainly to be seen
from the perspective that this would reduce and already low risk further as
well as, potentially, also lower the impact of any similar events in the
future.
“The Canal Authorities already expended that northern parts
of the canal a few years ago, and hence it would also appear that it was only a
matter of time before the southern parts would get expanded, and hence the
incident likely just accelerated that point in time.”
More than 300 vessels were held at anchor for six days when
the Ever Given ran aground at the southern end of the canal on 23 March 2021,
and many more diverted their voyages around the Cape of Good Hope.
At the time of writing the Ever Given is being held in the
Great Bitter Lakes pending a compensation claim brought by the SCA against
owners.