Suez Canal: Ever Given finally free, but impact could last month

Suez Canal: Ever Given finally free, but experts warn supply chain impact could last months

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Suez Canal: Ever Given finally free, but experts warn supply chain impact could last months

The Ever Given was pulled free from the Suez Canal on Monday after cutting off traffic in the vital waterway for six days, but experts say the disruptions to global trade will continue to reverberate.

ā€œWe might celebrate the success of releasing the ship and unblocking the Suez, but thatā€™s not the end of the story here,ā€ said Douglas Kent, executive vice president of strategy and alliances at the Association for Supply Chain Management, told CNCB.

ā€œItā€™s definitely going to continue to backlog ports and other delivery mechanisms as a result, and then of course the chaos that disrupts thereafter,ā€ he added.

The ultra-large container ship became wedged in the Suez Canal last Tuesday, and it was dislodged around 9 a.m. ET on Monday after more than 10 tugboats arrived on the scene, along with specialized dredging equipment and expert salvage teams all working together to free the 220,000-ton vessel.

But while traffic has now resumed in the key waterway, the repercussions after days of halted movement will continue to be felt.

ā€œThe disruption of a week of this size is going to continue to have cascading effects ... itā€™s got to be at least 60 days before things get sorted out and appear to be a bit back to normal,ā€ Stephen Flynn, professor of political science at Northeastern University, told the publication. ā€œThis level of disruption cascaded after every 24 hours,ā€ he added.

Flynn, who is also founding director at the Global Resilience Institute, noted that this is one of the challenges of a just-in-time system. Assembly lines will be idled because parts donā€™t show up when theyā€™re expected, for example.

ā€œItā€™s never been stressed this badly before, and itā€™s going to take a really long time, and theyā€™re just beginning the process of sorting it out ... youā€™ve essentially created this traffic jam that doesnā€™t allow you just to reset and restart ā€” you have to restack and reset the system and thatā€™s something thatā€™s going to take a lot of choreography,ā€ Flynn added.

Meanwhile, William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute, told USA Today: ā€œThis is a warning about how vulnerable our supply chains are and how the just-in-time inventory techniques that have been so popular have to be rethought,ā€ he said.

ā€œThe shortages and the supply chain shortages that cause assembly lines to shut down ā€“ that will have a greater impact,ā€ Lee added.

A representative of Netherlands-based importer Origin Fruit Direct said that the Suez Canal blockage caused a delay in Indian table grape shipments, which could help to alleviate the oversupply pressure in the European market.

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