Bulk carriers 'Fu Xing Hai' and 'Suvari Bey' spearheaded the new navigation lane, built in the Small Bitter Lakes area. At the same time, four ships passed through the older existing Suez Canal: the container ship 'Mathilde Schulte', the multipurpose vessel 'Cosco Shipping Teng Da' and the bulk carriers 'Yangtze Alpha' and 'Rui Fu Cheng'.

Suez Canal Authority director Ossama Rabiee called the 10 extra kilometres now added to the canal a "significant qualitative leap forward that will help improve the navigational safety of the canal and reduce the impact of both water and wind currents on passing ships". In March 2021, the Suez Canal's vulnerability was revealed when the container ship 'Ever Given' became stuck there, blocking the important shipping route for almost a week.

Apart from safety, the expansion will also increase capacity: an additional six to eight ships per day will soon be able to pass through the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal Authority would like to add dozens more kilometres of a second shipping lane to introduce two-way traffic there too. The problem, however, is that this will cost billions of dollars, while the canal's revenues have actually fallen sharply recently. Recently, the management reported that the canal has now lost $8 billion as ships started to avoid the Suez Canal this year because of Houthi rebels' violence against shipping traffic on the Red Sea.

Ships that do use the route will be able to start using the new canal section as soon as some responsible Egyptian authorities have marked it on the sea charts and published them.

Source: NT