Dubai United Arab Emirates (CNN)– Lieutenant General Osama Rabie, Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, spoke about the efforts of the Suez Canal to advance the maritime transport industry, and announced the study of a project to completely double the canal, in cooperation with two international companies, in light of the challenges faced by the canal as a result of Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
Lieutenant General Osama Rabie’s speech came during his participation in the annual International Maritime Transport and Logistics Conference (MARLOG), on Sunday.
Osama Rabie said: “We have been working on our projects for a long time Completion of the new Suez Canal, We are working on other projects, such as the southern sector, in which we are improving the degree of navigation by 28% as a result of the narrowness of this sector in which the Ever Given ship accident occurred, and at a depth from 66 feet to 72 feet, and this has ended, thank God.”
The head of the Suez Canal Authority added in a video clip published by the Egyptian “Sada El Balad” TV channel: “We are doing a duplication of 10 kilometers in the Lesser and Great Bitter Lakes, which will join the new Suez Canal to become 82 kilometers long from the current 72 kilometers, which will increase the number of ships.” .
Lieutenant General Osama Rabie added, saying: “We also studied the full duplication of the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal does not currently have full duplication. There are about 80 kilometers in the Suez Canal that have not been doubled, including 50 kilometers in the north and 30 kilometers in the south. We did preliminary studies and they were presented.” On the President (Abdel Fattah El-Sisi), and there are two large companies working on feasibility studies, to determine who can work with us. We will finish this work and present it to the President, so that the traffic rate in the Suez Canal becomes 100%, (from both directions).”
Rabei went on to add: “We are working to develop the naval fleet in the Suez Canal. I mean, we are not silent about this. This crisis (the Houthi attacks) has created for us some new services that we can provide to ships crossing from the Red Sea, in the Suez Canal, as a service.” Ship maintenance and repair, marine rescue, refueling, marine ambulance, crew replacement, and supply of food and water supplies.”
In his speech, Lieutenant General Rabie touched on the security and geopolitical tensions in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab region that have erupted since last November, and which continue to cast a shadow on the global maritime scene, as freight loads for ships heading to Red Sea ports rose to $6,800 per container compared to about $750. per container before the crisis, in addition to the high costs of ship fuel and the high cost of ship insurance, sometimes reaching 10 times the pre-crisis insurance value,” according to what was reported on the Suez Canal Authority’s website.
Rabie pointed out that, “During the past period, the Suez Canal was keen to hold a series of successive meetings with institutions, shipping lines, and a number of international shipping leaders to discuss the repercussions of the current crisis in the Red Sea region.”
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