On March 23, 2021 (UTC+2), MV Ever Given was stranded on the Suez Canal, and traffic was paralyzed for six days. After that, on March 29th, the ship was finally rescued. Hence, since the ship was stuck on the southern end of the single canal, the Suez Canal, there was no way to bypass, and at least 369 ships were delayed. As about 10% of global logistics pass through the Suez Canal, a severe disruption occurred in the transportation industry. For example, oil and gas supplies were also affected, and international oil prices rose by close to 6% by March 26 after the accident. Besides, as the Suez Canal was not available, people worldwide realized how vital the Suez Canal was in international trade as they saw the consequences of not using the Suez Canal. Of the shipping fares falling in the aftermath of this incident, only those for European routes surged.
The world has developed through numerous exchanges. The era of voyage occurred to secure new trade routes, and the development of transportation and transportation has accelerated globalization. This incident was able to reaffirm that logistics and transportation have a tremendous impact even today, entering the information age, and showed the necessity of pioneering another detour or expanding the 2nd Suez Canal. Due to this incident, some ships abandoned the Suez Canal and chose a transportation route around the Cape of Good Hope. This
alternate pathway takes a long time, and it takes a long time to manage the logistics, resulting in enormous financial losses. The second canal has already been completed near the northern end, but the southern end, where the incident happened, is a single canal. Thus, a bottleneck caused numerous ships around the world to be tied up and hit the economic market. We should try to reduce the impact by opening another detour quickly or by expanding the 2nd Suez Canal to the southern end of this event, in my opinion.
By: Junhong Park