MARITIME

31 August 2022: Suez Canal, Egypt

An oil tanker was briefly stranded in Egypt’s Suez Canal but tugboats were able to refloat it. The tanker was said to have had a technical fault with its rudder, according to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) which caused the mishap harkening back to the Ever Given fiasco which ran aground and was stuck in the canal for six days in March of 2021. Both incidents occurred in the same stretch of the canal. The vessel, the Affinity V, was blocking the southern section of the canal, two navigational sources said, but the SCA said that it had been refloated and traffic had returned to normal.