Ever Given, the stranded mega-container vessel currently blocking the Suez Canal is still stuck. It has been stuck now for 5 days and 17 hours at the time of publishing this post and is costing an estimated $400 million USD in trade for every HOUR it is stuck. That works out to roughly $55 billion USD so far and counting. [source]

That figure seems completely unfathomable, but even an extremely conservative estimate would place the cost of this stuck container ship in the 10s of billions. It also highlights how vital the Suez Canal is, and how much global transportation relies on this narrow waterway.

In this startling aerial footage taken earlier today, 369 vessels are seen currently waiting for the Suez Canal to reopen. This brief overhead view quickly tells us why the cost of this grounded container ship is so staggering. Truly the bottleneck of bottlenecks is underway and hopefully for the global economy’s sake, it is resolved soon.

According to CNBC:

The Suez Canal, which separates Africa from Asia, is one of the busiest trade routes in the world, with approximately 12% of total global trade moving through it. Energy exports like liquified natural gas, Crude oil, and refined oil make up 5% to 10% of global shipments. The rest of the traffic is largely consumer products ranging from fire pits to clothing, furniture, manufacturing, auto parts and exercise equipment. [source]