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Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

reuters.com

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Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#511

Post by behnamoh »

pradn wrote: post #207

A great Twitter thread with many articles/resources if you want a critical lens at the global logistics supply chain. https://twitter.com/CharmaineSChua/status/137586855212986368... I found this article on the impact on super-sized ships on logistical infrastructure useful and fascinating. It describes how the creation of ships too big to fit in the Panama canal (post-PANAMAX ships) was received by 1) Panamanians 2)…

Maybe it's easier to read that Twitter thread here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1375868552129863681.html

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#512

Post by andechs »

gt565k wrote: post #474
throwawayfire wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The disruption will have introduced hypotheticals In general, temporary disruption has some long-term positive economic effects (which is directly why 'disruption' is valued in Silicon Valley). For example, during London Tube Strikes, commuters find different and more efficient routes and 5% ended up permanently changing their route on public transport: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tube-strike..…

This happened with the bridge collapse on I-85 in Atlanta [1] I used to take the access road parallel to the bridge and avoid a lot of traffic that was south bound. When the bridge collapsed and I-85 was blocked off, everyone learned about the parallel access road, and it now became a cluster of a traffic hot zone too. Prior to that, a lot of people were not aware of the alternate route. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/…

The discovery of the alternate route by "everyone else" means that the roads are now in more usage.

Unless the bridge collapse resulted in increased traffic levels afterwards, the same traffic that used to go over I85 is now distributed over 2 routes.

While there's a net negative to you, it's likely that a lot of people ended up saving time on their routes.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#513

Post by jldugger »

JosephRedfern wrote: post #62

Lots of articles quote a $XXX billion dollars per day figure, but those numbers are normally for "worth of goods delayed" which, while interesting, doesn't tell the story to me. Are there any estimates as to the actual cost of this "mishap", due to e.g. spoilage, financial/contractual repercussions of late deliveries, personnel/fuel costs?

Well, the Suez canal is optional, and comes at a cost just to use it. When the cost of fuel is low, you might opt for the long route.

But there's definitely discontinuities that emerge when the option is taken away -- oil refineries lose supply, which increases the cost of fuel, which makes the long way more expensive.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#514

Post by Dylan16807 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #510
Dylan16807 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. We're not talking about what's reasonable, but what's expected. 2. This isn't like a monopoly on water supply, because the ships don't have to go this way. To make the analogy work you'd have to add something like "everybody already has a well, but supplying tap water is cheaper than using a well". In such a situation, a water company that's maximizing profits would charge just a little bit less than using a well,…

Everybody has access to rainwater, except the people who don't. I think the analogy works quite well re point 2 (though not point 3).

We could argue about how fitting it is, but I'll just say this:

If we want to go with "everyone has suitable access to rainwater for important household use", then it changes the impact of the water company overcharging. It goes from despicable to mundane.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#515

Post by [deleted] »

ufmace wrote: post #141
JosephRedfern wrote: post #62

Lots of articles quote a $XXX billion dollars per day figure, but those numbers are normally for "worth of goods delayed" which, while interesting, doesn't tell the story to me. Are there any estimates as to the actual cost of this "mishap", due to e.g. spoilage, financial/contractual repercussions of late deliveries, personnel/fuel costs?

Probably the actual cost will require an army of accountants and lawyers at a dozen major logistics corporations arguing with each other for months to even try to compute. I doubt us regular uninvolved people will ever get a "real" number. How do you even try to calculate and reveal the cost associated with say a manufacturer in the middle of a supply chain deciding to source their parts from a different vendor for t…

[deleted]

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#516

Post by [deleted] »

andechs wrote: post #512
gt565k wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened with the bridge collapse on I-85 in Atlanta [1] I used to take the access road parallel to the bridge and avoid a lot of traffic that was south bound. When the bridge collapsed and I-85 was blocked off, everyone learned about the parallel access road, and it now became a cluster of a traffic hot zone too. Prior to that, a lot of people were not aware of the alternate route. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/…

The discovery of the alternate route by "everyone else" means that the roads are now in more usage. Unless the bridge collapse resulted in increased traffic levels afterwards, the same traffic that used to go over I85 is now distributed over 2 routes. While there's a net negative to you, it's likely that a lot of people ended up saving time on their routes.

[deleted]

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#517

Post by lukifer »

stcredzero wrote: post #450
lukifer wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it would be naive to pretend that pre-determined narratives aren't a huge factor, I think that model leaves something out: that journalists and organizations are often incentivized to distort the facts into arbitrary narratives, based not on values or ideology, but on virality and cognitive/emotional stickiness. "Person X is a hero" and "Person X is a villain" will both tend to outcompete nuance ("Person X is f…

journalists and organizations are often incentivized to distort the facts into arbitrary narratives Those aren't arbitrary . They are often pre-decided by higher ups in the company, or pre-decided as the prevailing groupthink in some forum or mailing list. People have been calling this stuff out online for years ! Funnily enough, it stays out of the consciousness of normal people, because it's never covered in the ma…

No dispute: journalistic institutions are power concentrations that invite pressure from all sorts of private interests, in addition to prevailing internal groupthink. (In the Twitterati era, I'd say the latter problem is both top-down and bottom-up, and they compound much more often than they cancel out.)

What I'm saying is that even if one corrects for ideological motives, obsequiousness to power, etc., one is still left with an independent incentive towards maximizing eyeballs, and therefore torturing complex realities into digestible narratives, and that can be a problem in and of itself.

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#518

Post by craftinator »

skullx wrote: post #113
craftinator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard from multiple sources that about $9b per day in commerce goes through the Suez, so that's probably just $9b * number of days stuck. I imagine the cost is actually quite a bit more, as the ripple effect from this traffic jam will continue for at least another month while shipments are diverted or delayed until traffic pressure returns to normal.

I would image the opposite tbh, that $9b of delayed goods per day is not lost, it's just delayed. Most of that goods, unless they are perishable goods, will sell like normal, just a bit later. There is obviously a loss here on increased costs and loss of sell opportunities due to the delay, but that figures are mega inflated IMO.

According to this paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the average loss of value per day of delay from the cargo on these ships is between 0.6 and 2.2 percent [1]. According to other research I've seen, somewhere between 12% and 30% of daily global sea trade (the 30% figure may be out large cargo freighters specifically, not sure) goes through the Suez Canal. Anyone want to do the math?

1) https://www.nber.org/digest/jun12/time-trade-barrier

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#519

Post by craftinator »

joosters wrote: post #101
craftinator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard from multiple sources that about $9b per day in commerce goes through the Suez, so that's probably just $9b * number of days stuck. I imagine the cost is actually quite a bit more, as the ripple effect from this traffic jam will continue for at least another month while shipments are diverted or delayed until traffic pressure returns to normal.

It's not like the $9b of daily commerce that can't get through the canal is being set alight and tipped overboard, it will reach its destination in the end. Some of that produce might have gone off, or the delay in its arrival causes knock-on costs, but the final cost is only going to be a fraction of that figure, not a large multiple!

I never said a large multiple. Regardless, below are some numbers that could get us started in estimating costs:

According to this paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the average loss of value per day of delay from the cargo on these ships is between 0.6 and 2.2 percent [1]. According to other research I've seen, somewhere between 12% and 30% of daily global sea trade goes through the Suez Canal. Anyone want to do the math?

1) https://www.nber.org/digest/jun12/time-trade-barrier

Re: Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded ship refloated

#520

Post by fomine3 »

rvp-x wrote: post #470
riverageraldo wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me question that shouldn't we have another canal built? Like if so much of the world's economy depends on this route shouldn't we build an extra canal to speed up the transportation and also act as a redundancy

Israel at some point was considering setting up a rail track between Eilat and the rest of the country. The main benefit of doing so is that cargo ships could unload and Eilat (red sea) and have cargo transported to a port in the mediterranean sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_railway_to_Eilat That plan was frozen after the Egypt-Israel peace agreement.

Possibly current decarbonization movement makes a new canal plan better?
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