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March 6, 2015

$8.5B Suez Canal expansion to open in August

  • The Egyptian military is directing the work, which involves digging a new waterway running 22 miles parallel to the canal to end in the Red Sea.
    • By BRIAN ROHAN
    Associated Press

    ISMAILIA, Egypt — Bulldozers push earth and dredgers spit mud round the clock at Egypt's Suez Canal in a race to quickly expand the strategic waterway for two-way traffic, a project trumpeted by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to revive both the country's damaged economy and visions of nationalist glory.

    The government's goal of more than doubling annual canal revenues to some $13 billion in less than a decade, however, appears overly ambitious. Although more vessels will be drawn to the canal because there will be almost no wait time, any major increase depends on something unlikely to happen soon, analysts and shippers say — a large jump in European demand fueling greater shipping from Asia.


     
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