Ever Given Suez Canal blockage (2021)
A container ship that ran aground across the Suez Canal in March 2021, blocking one of the world's main trade routes for six days.
A ship aground in a chokepoint does not just cause a loss to itself: it stops every ship behind it, and the cost is spread across dozens of parties. The Ever Given, a 400-meter container ship, swung across the canal in high winds, and freeing it took six days of dredging and towing. The owner declared general average, which required cargo owners to contribute to salvage costs before getting their containers back. The canal authority held the ship for more than three months as security for its own claim. For insurance, the losses of the ships stuck behind and of their shippers were mostly delay, which cargo policies exclude, leaving most of the economic cost uninsured.
On March 23, 2021, the Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal and was refloated only on March 29; more than 400 ships waited, Lloyd's List estimated the trade held up at 9.6 billion dollars a day, and the canal authority, which first claimed 916 million dollars, released the ship only after a settlement on July 7, 2021.
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