Two tankers collided on the Suez Canal last night (22 August) blocking the canal traffic for a few hours.
The Suez Canal Authority deployed tugboats to move the two ships and the movement along the canal resumed.
The vessels involved in the accident were Burri, a Cayman island tanker, and the BW Lesmes, a Singapore-flagged LNG tanker, according to MarineTraffic.
The Suez Canal Authority mentioned that one of the tankers had broken down, but did not identify which one.
Watch the playback of the two vessels’ collision and the tug operations happening right now in the #SuezCanal #marinetraffic pic.twitter.com/ZamrIeaZfk
— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) August 22, 2023
BW LNG AS, the operator of BW Lesmes, said in a statement that its ship ran aground transiting southbound through the Suez Canal at approximately 21:35 (18:35 GMT) on Tuesday (22 August).
The incident sparked pile-up fears in the global supply chain industry, evoking memories of the grounding accident of the giant container vessel Ever Given, which caused a traffic standstill at Egypt’s Suez Canal for several weeks.
