After the blocking of the Suez Canal, global shipping is still feeling the effects as shipping rates continue to rise.
According to the Shanghai Export Containerised Freight Index, shipping rates have increased since the Ever Given blocked trade routes from a low of $2570.68 up to a high of $3495.76.
By comparison, worldwide freight shipping rates the previous year were less than a third of this figure.
Part of the reason for this is the residual effect of the blockage on the Suez Canal, the largest trade route in the world, which has caused congestion in several major ports that is still being managed.
On 23rd March 2021, one of the largest container ships in the world ran aground in the middle of the Suez Canal. The Ever Given was so large that it blocked the entire shipping route, which accounts for 12 per cent of all global trade.
Initially opened in 1869, the Suez Canal significantly cut down on travel times, as vessels can travel between the North Atlantic and Indian oceans without circumventing the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, a route that increases travel journeys by up to a fortnight.
However, as the route became more widely used by bigger ships, certain parts of the canal proved to not be wide enough for ships to travel in both directions at the same time, which leads to convoys taking turns, and it was one of these single-lane parts that the Ever Given blocked.
The complex process of refloating the 67,000lb vessel took a week, and the initial backlog of ships would not be cleared until early April.
