After the Ever Given was re-floated yesterday and moved to the Great Bitter Lake, the 43 vessels waiting at anchorage in the lake was able to form a southbound convoy – three of them Maersk vessels – and pass through the canal. We expect that it will take approximately a week to move the complete queue through the canal, conditional to safety and other operational circumstances. As more vessels reach the queue, this is an estimate and is subject to change.

Maersk has earlier communicated that even when reopened, the blockage of the Suez Canal would have ripple effects on global supply chains for weeks to come. At this point in time, it is estimated that the delays could have an impact on our ocean network capacity for the coming several weeks. Maersk is doing their utmost to mitigate the impact and contingency plans are still being made, but the loss of capacity to be 20-30 percent over multiple weeks, depending on market dynamics.

Beyond the loss of capacity, severe port congestions are expected as ships will be arriving out of their slotted time, leading to adjusted rotations to limit the overall net loss of ocean network capacity.

Source: Maersk