Oil Tanker That Ran Aground In Suez Canal Has Refloated

Update: it appears that unlike March 2021, a new transportation crisis will be avoided, as the tanker that ran aground and briefly blocked Suez traffic, has successfully refloated:

Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority successfully refloats the Affinity V crude oil tanker#Egypt pic.twitter.com/kp9H72JnfU

— Daily News Egypt (@DailyNewsEgypt) August 31, 2022

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Earlier:

More than a year after the Ever Given containership got stuck for 6 days in the Suez Canal, snarling already broken post-Covid supply chains, moments ago we learned that navigation in the critical canal linking the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean, and which handles about 5% of global daily crude oil and 8% of LNG flows, has again been halted after a Singapore-flagged oil tanker run aground in the Suez.

According to preliminary reports, the ship that has run aground is the Affinity V oil tanker sailing under a Singapore flag.

Egypt Daily News tweeted that the tugboats from the Suez Canal Authority are currently freeing the tanker:

Crude oil tanker Affinity V ran aground in Egypt’s Suez Canal, tugboats from Suez Canal Authority are currently freeing it.#Egypt #SuezCanal #AffinityV pic.twitter.com/CYRofmBuRg

— Daily News Egypt (@DailyNewsEgypt) August 31, 2022

It is unclear how bad the blockage is, and how quickly the ship can be freed but as of this moment navigation through the Suez has been stopped. Which is a problem for Europe, as in the absence of Russian pipeline gas flows, and with US LNG exports to Europe still suspended due to the Freeport terminal fire, the continent has become almost exclusively reliant on Beijing LNG (which as we reported yesterday is just Russian LNG repackaged and resold at a much higher price to gullible Europeans).