Egypt is preparing to conduct a feasibility study on a giant new project aiming to expand the Suez Canal to speed up transit times and avoid maritime traffic jams.
Journalist Ahmed Moussa revealed, through his program “By My Responsibility” on Sunday, that the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Osama Rabie will present to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the “duplication of the Suez Canal” project.
According to Moussa, the Egyptian state is currently working on creating two canals at a length of 192 km, to solve ship waiting times which can extend to three hours.
He assured that the project to double the Suez Canal will have a 100 percent safety rate.
He noted that in the past 70 to 80 ships would travel through the canal daily, and following the project the passage of ships through Egypt will increase and the passage period will be reduced to approximately nine hours.
Rabie said during an event on Sunday that the project aims to convert the single-lane lanes – 50 kilometers long in the northern part, and 30 kilometers in the southern part – into double-lane crossings.
The new expansion proposals are based on plans first floated in 2021 after the grounding of the giant ship Ever Given, which closed much of the vital sea lane for about a week.
