Cargo ship runs aground in single-lane stretch of Suez Canal

Bulk shipping vessel MV Glory carrying tonnes of grains from Ukraine to China has since been refloated, though knock-on effects to traffic are expected

A bulk cargo vessel carrying grain from Ukraine ran aground in the Suez Canal on Monday before being refloated, officials said on Monday.

Officials from the Suez Canal Authority said they expect the incident to result in some delays to trade traffic in the Egyptian waterway.

The vessel, MV Glory, ran aground near the city of Qantara, the shipping firm Leth Agencies said.

While it is not immediately clear what caused the major shipping vessel to come to a grinding halt, parts of Egypt — especially the northern provinces — were reeling under a wave of bad weather on Sunday.

The MV Glory is 225 metres (738 feet) long and is carrying over 65,000 metric tonnes of corn from Ukraine bound for China.

Three tug boats were deployed to refloat the vessel, which got stuck in the narrow canal while transiting through the waters to join the southbound convoy, said Osama Rabie, chair of the Suez Canal Authority.

Tracking websites and satellite images earlier showed the MV Glory parked in a single-lane stretch of the canal just south of Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea.

In March 2021 the Ever Given cargo vessel ran aground blocking the Suez Canal for six days, its longest-ever outage, holding up an estimated $60bn of trade.

The incident with the Panama-flagged Ever Given led the Egyptian authorities to widen and deepen the southern neck of the canal where vessels face a restricted gateway.

An oil tanker also ran aground in the canal in September last year. The Singaporean vessel Affinity V became stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal in almost the exact same spot as the Ever Given had been. It was refloated after several hours.