Works are under way to expand the two-way section of the Suez canal to 82 km (51 miles) from 72 km, the chairman of the authority managing the Egyptian waterway said on Tuesday.
Suez Canal Authority Chairman Osama Rabieh told a news conference that it would be too expensive to expand the entire waterway that links the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
Egypt’s Suez Canal aimed to have a 15% share of global energy trade by 2040, up from 8% in 2019, the canal authority said in January.
The increase would come from “adopting flexible marketing policies”, it said.
Rabieh told Arabiya TV in an interview in January that the 6% increase in canal fees from February would boost annual revenue by $400 million (about R6 billion).
In addition to the increase in canal fees, the canal authority planned to offer financial incentives for ships that follow environmentally friendly standards, Egyptian daily “El Watan” reported recently, citing a TV interview with Rabieh.
Revenue from the canal in 2021 was hit by a 6-day disruption when one of the world’s largest container ships, Ever Given, got stuck in the 190km canal in March, halting traffic in both directions.
Canal revenue sat at $571.3m in November, a record high.
Reuters