320 Ships Traverse Suez Canal in Last Week
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Sunday, March 20, 2016
The Suez Canal traffic data revealed that 320 vessels transited the canal and transported a total load of 16.4m tonnes during the last week (11to 17 March 2016).
In the past week, two Danish container ships—the “Moren Maersk” and “Munkebo Maersk”—transited the channel with a cargo of 200,360 tonnes.
Cargo load is the main standard to calculate the volume of trade in the Suez Canal, as transit fees are calculated by tonnage.
The average number of ships that transited the canal per day reached 45.71 ships, with an average cargo load of 2.34m tonnes.
In 2015, the revenue collected through the Suez Canal declined to $5.175bn, compared to a reported revenue of $5.465bn in 2014.
The decline of $290m is thought to be due to the rise Special Drawing Rights (SDR) against the US dollar, in addition to the drop in oil prices and the slowdown of the global economy.