The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) is advertising itself as a repair base for vessels damaged in Bab el-Mandeb crossings.
SCA shipyards and affiliated companies are ready “to handle breakdowns and emergencies that Canal-transiting vessels may encounter,” the authority’s chairman and managing director Admiral Osama Rabie said in a promotional video released on the SCA’s website and social media on Monday.
The offer stands as part of the SCA’s cooperation with shipping clients “to minimise the impact of the current situation in Bab el-Mandeb” off Yemen, Rabie added.
As a case in point, the SCA released a highly stylised corporate video of the 56,900-dwt Zografia (built 2010) undergoing repairs at Suez Shipyard Co.
As TradeWinds already reported, the Greek bulker was hit by a Houthi missile in the Red Sea on 16 January.
Four days later, TradeWinds published dramatic video showing the missile’s impact, first released by Greece’s Skai television station. The footage shot from a camera on the bridge showed the projectile exploding on deck amidship towards the bow.
The more recent SCA video shows the ship’s deck in much better condition than one would have expected, given the ferocity of the explosion.
The SCA video, on the other hand, reveals a gaping hole in the Zografia’s port side, amidship towards the bow and near the waterline.
TradeWinds understands that this was the missile’s exit point.
The Zografia is undergoing “necessary maintenance and repair works by [Suez Shipyard Co.’s] capable personnel and expertise, using its technical capabilities,” the SCA said.
The Suez Canal’s regular income streams from normal transit tolls have been under severe strain since shipping companies started sailing around southern Africa to avoid Houthi fire.
According to the latest Clarksons figures, the average daily tonnage that crossed the Canal since 12 January — the day US and UK escalated the crisis by beginning air strikes against the Houthis — was 54% below the corresponding figure for the first half of December.
Rabie warned on 11 January that the Canal’s dollar revenue since the beginning of the year was down 40% from the same period in 2023.
The SCA had notched up record annual revenue of $9.4bn in the fiscal year ending 30 June.
In some ways, Canal revenue is even more important for cash-strapped Egypt than that provided by the country’s tourism industry, which usually contributes more money but is notoriously fickle.
