Lines will see some disruption to services through the Suez Canal ahead of the opening of a new capacity extension in August.
The new Suez Canal expansion is due to be opened on 6 August and will accommodate vessels of up to 24 metres draught. It will also hugely increase daily capacity, reduce transit times southbound from 18 hours to 11 hours, and minimise waiting time for vessels to three hours instead of 8-11 hours at present, according to Suez Canal Authority.
Lines will see some disruption to services through the Suez Canal ahead of the opening of a new capacity extension in August.
The new Suez Canal expansion is due to be opened on 6 August and will accommodate vessels of up to 24 metres draught. It will also hugely increase daily capacity, reduce transit times southbound from 18 hours to 11 hours, and minimise waiting time for vessels to three hours instead of 8-11 hours at present, according to Suez Canal Authority.
However, in the run-up to its opening the SCA is undertaking significant dredging work which is only expected to be completed by 15 July. Until then only one convoy is allowed inside the Canal at any given time.
Inchcape Shipping Services advised that convoy timings were being decided by the SCA on a daily basis and the Authority was currently operating only one convoy from the north and one per south daily, with the time of entering the Canal changeable on a daily basis.
When completed, SCA hopes the additional capacity, supported by new industrial zones and logistics zones, will draw more traffic to the route and investment into Egypt.
By adding a new parallel waterway to the existing one, the SCA expects to enable direct unstopped transits for 45 ships in both directions, increasing the daily average of transiting vessels to 97 ships from 49 by 2023.
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