First ships successfully cross Egypt’s New Suez Canal in test-run

[unhappycamper]

http://www.france24.com/en/20150726-egypt-new-suez-canal-test



Boats, including a container ship, cross the new waterway of the Suez canal on July 25, 2015, in the port city of Ismailia, east of Cairo, in Egypt’s first trial run of the ‘New Suez Canal’

First ships successfully cross Egypt’s New Suez Canal in test-run
Latest update : 2015-07-26

The first cargo ships passed through Egypt’s New Suez Canal on Saturday in a test-run before it opens next month, state media reported, 11 months after the army began constructing the $8 billion canal alongside the existing 145-year-old Suez Canal.

The new waterway, which President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hopes will help expand trade along the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia, will be formally inaugurated on Aug. 6.

Sisi wants the canal to become a symbol of national pride and to help combat Egypt’s double-digit unemployment. The old Suez Canal is already a vital source of hard currency for Egypt, which has seen tourism and foreign investment drain away in the years of turmoil since a 2011 uprising.

Three container ships crossed the new waterway, state news agency MENA reported. One was an American ship heading to Egypt’s Port Said from Saudi Arabia, another was a Danish ship sailing to the United States from Singapore, and a Bahraini ship going to Italy from Saudi Arabia.

[Turbineguy]

1. This will save a lot of time

it should reduce transit time by 6-12 hours because at the old system was one-way only and you had to wait for a group of ships going in the opposite direction to pass. In addition there were limits to how many ships could be included in a transit group, so there was wait time at the anchorage.

For a large containership this amounts to fuel savings of 6-10 tons per hour saved at current price, around $300 per ton.