03 Jan 2022; MEMO: Egypt's Suez Canal achieved a total of $6.3 billion revenue in 2021, the highest in the canal's history, official data showed yesterday.
The state-run Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chief, Osama Rabie, said in a statement that the high revenues had stemmed from a "significant increase in the transit rates of various types of ships compared to 2020."
Rabie pointed out that the canal's net tonnages for last year had amounted to "over 1.27 billion tons," adding that the latter had "exceeded everything registered before."
He went on saying that the canal's navigation movement last year had seen "20,694 ships crossing from both directions compared to 18,830 ships during the year 2020, marking a 10 per cent increase of 1,864 ships."
"The canal's revenues in 2021 achieved a significant increase of 12.8 per cent, registering $6.3 billion, compared to $5.6 billion during 2020, marking an increase of $720 million," Rabie noted.
The Egyptian official noted that the canal's total net tonnage had amounted to "1.17 billion tons in 2020."
"The number of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) carriers increased by 36.6 per cent, up from 686 ships in 2020 to 937 ships in 2021," he said.
On 24 March, giant Ever Given cargo had been stranded in the canal, leading to the closure of the canal's traffic for six days. In return, the SCA had requested a $900 million compensation from the ship's owning company, "Evergreen," but later reduced it to $550 million.
