A skyscraper-sized cargo ship wedged across Egypt’s Suez Canal further imperilled global shipping on Thursday as at least 150 other vessels needing to pass through the crucial waterway idled waiting for the obstruction to clear, authorities said. The Ever Given, a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground on Tuesday in the narrow, man-made canal dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula. Authorities began work again to free the vessel on Thursday morning after halting for the night, an Egyptian canal authority official said. The official said workers hoped to avoid offloading containers from the vessel as it would be a days-long effort to do so that could extend the closure. So far, dredgers have tried to clear silt around the massive ship. Tug boats nudged the vessel alongside it, trying to gain momentum. From the shore, at least one backhoe dug into the canal’s sandy banks, suggesting the bow of the ship had ploughed into it. However, satellite photos taken Thursday by Planet Labs Inc. and analysed by Associated Press showed the vessel still stuck in the same location. Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, the head of the canal authority, said navigation through the waterway would remain halted till they refloat the vessel. A team from Boskalis, a Dutch firm specialised in salvaging, arrived at the canal on Thursday, though one of the company’s top officials warned removing the vessel could take “days to weeks.” “It is, in a manner of speaking, a very heavy whale on the beach,” Boskalis chairman Peter Berdowski told the Dutch current affairs programme “Nieuwuur” on Wednesday night. “The ship, with the weight it now has, can’t really be pulled free. You can forget it.” Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the firm that manages the Ever Given, said the ship’s 25-member crew were safe and accounted for. The ship’s Japanese owner said all the crew came form India. The ship had two pilots from Egypt’s canal authority aboard the vessel to guide it when the grounding happened around 7.45am on Tuesday, the company said. Canal service provider Leth Agencies said at least 150 ships were waiting for the Ever Given to be cleared, including vessels near Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea, Port Suez on the Red Sea and those already stuck in the canal system on Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake. Cargo ships already behind the Ever Given will be reversed south back to Port Suez to free the channel, Leth Agencies said. Authorities hope to do the same to the Ever Given when they can free it. Evergreen Marine Corp, a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship, said in a statement that the Ever Given had been overcome by strong winds as it entered the canal from the Red Sea but none of its containers had sunk. Shoei Kisen, the Japanese owner of the container ship stuck in the Suez Canal, apologised on Thursday, and added that it was working towards a resolution of the situation. In Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters on Thursday that the Suez Canal is part of a crucial international sea lane, and that the Japanese government was gathering information and working with local authorities. The struggle to dislodge it is now turning the world’s attention to the work of SMIT Salvage, a legendary Dutch firm whose employees parachute themselves from one ship wreckage to the next, saving vessels often during violent storms. The company is synonymous with some of the most daring naval salvages, including lifting a sunken Russian nuclear submarine in 2001, and removing fuel from inside the Costa Concordia cruise ship after it ran aground in Italy in 2012. SMIT, a unit of Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, is one of the companies appointed by Ever Given’s owner to help move the vessel. The first job will be to work out exactly how entrenched in the wall the ship is, said Boskalis spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer. “It will be critical to inspect the vessel and how deeply it is lodged in the embankment,” Schuttevaer said. “The question is how solidly she has been grounded.” The answer to that question will dictate what comes next. The salvors could have to find a way to lighten the vessel’s enormous weight so that it can be pulled to a less obstructive position. At the moment, it’s blocking the path of more than 100 vessels. The process of making the ship lighter means removing things like the ballast water, which helps keep ships steady when they are at sea. Fuel will probably have to be unloaded too, Schuttavaer said. In a worst-case scenario, it could be that some of the carrier’s containers – usually filled with everything from furniture to televisions – may have to be taken off. How long that process lasts would depend on how much equipment is around to do the heavy lifting. It can often involve flying in helicopters to remove the crates one by one. SMIT was set to fly an eight-person team in at dawn on Thursday to board and inspect the vessel and the grounding. A big part of the initial underwater assessment was how much the banks sloped at that point in the canal. Such teams are usually led by a salvage master, often a former captain or someone with knowledge of the industry, but can also include divers, welders and crane operators, according to Joseph Farrell III, director of business development at Resolve Marine, another company that offers salvage services. He declined to comment specifically on the Ever Given. A look at Hong Kong’s worst maritime accidents Tuesday marked the second major crash involving the Ever Given in recent years. In 2019, the cargo ship ran into a small ferry moored on the Elbe River in the German port city of Hamburg. Authorities at the time blamed strong wind for the collision, which severely damaged the ferry. The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Mideast, which rely on the canal to avoid sailing around Africa. The price of international benchmark Brent crude stood at over US$63 a barrel on Thursday. Singapore’s transport minister said on Thursday the blockage in the Suez Canal could temporarily disrupt supplies to the region. “Should that happen, some draw down on inventories will become necessary,” Ong Ye Kung said in a Facebook post, adding PSA, Singapore’s port operator, may see schedule disruptions when shipping lines reroute their journeys. “It will have to plan ahead and ensure that operations remain smooth,” he said. The Ever Given, built in 2018 with a length of nearly 400 metres and a width of 59 metres, is among the largest cargo ships in the world. It can carry some 20,000 containers at a time. It previously had been at ports in China before heading toward Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo. It also remains one of Egypt’s top foreign currency earners. In 2015, the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi completed a major expansion of the canal, allowing it to accommodate the world’s largest vessels. However, the Ever Given ran aground south of that new portion of the canal. The stranding on Tuesday is just the latest to affect mariners amid the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands have been stuck aboard vessels due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, demands on shipping have increased, adding to the pressure on tired sailors. Additional reporting by Reuters