Dutch marine rescue company: Evergreen cargo ship is expected to get out of trouble early next week

Evergreen Marine giant container ship Chang Chi ship stranded in the Suez Canal, the Dutch marine rescue company Smit Salvage said, if the tugboat load capacity, dredging works and full tide and other multi-pronged success to move the cargo ship, early next week Chang Chi ship will be able to get out of trouble.

Prior to yesterday, the dredger had removed about 20,000 metric tons of sediment around the bow, but the operation to refloat the Chang Chi was suspended last night.

“Our goal is to finish the job after the weekend, but everything has to be perfect,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Smit Salvage’s parent company Boskalis, told Dutch television news program Nieuwsuur last night. Smit Salvage joined the operation this week to assist the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) in rescuing the Evergreen cargo container.

The bow is solidly stuck in the mud, but the stern is not completely pushed into the mud, which is good news,” said Berdowski. We can try to use that to move the freighter.”

“Several heavy tugs plus a total load capacity of 400 metric tons will arrive at the end of the week. We hope that the combination of the tugs, the bow dredging project and the full tide will allow us to start moving the freighter next Monday.”

The Evergreen freighter ran aground on the waterway, causing major ship congestion in the Suez Canal, nearly doubling tanker freight rates and disrupting the global supply chain.

A crane will be on site this weekend and could be used to unload containers from the Evergreen to reduce its weight, but experts warned the process could be both complex and Time-consuming, Berdowski said.

If we don’t succeed in moving the cargo ship next week, we will have to remove about 600 containers from the bow to reduce the weight,” he said. This will delay our progress by at least several days because it will be a problem to place those containers.”

In addition, the sources said the operation to try to refloat the Chang Chi will resume at around 2:30 p.m. local time today (12:30 p.m. GMT today), taking advantage of the high tide.

The source said that if unsuccessful, another attempt will be made tomorrow morning. The source noted that to refloat the Chang Chi, more sediment may have to be removed from around the bow.