Egypt's Suez Canal celebrates the arrival of a large dredger

Egypt's Suez Canal Authority (SCA) celebrated on Monday the recent arrival of a large cutter suction dredger (CSD).

"We celebrate together CSD Mohab Maneesh, the largest in the Middle East and Africa, joining the SCA's fleet," SCA Chairman Osama Rabie said during a ceremony held in Ismailia province in northeastern Egypt.

The new dredger is considered "an unprecedented addition to the authority's dredgers fleet," the SCA chief added.

He stressed that "it will make a quantum leap in the SCA's capabilities in carrying out dredging works and projects inside and outside Egypt."

The 29,190-kilowatt heavy-duty rock CSD Mohab Mameesh was made by Dutch shipbuilder Royal IHC, which is working on another dredger named Hussein Tantawy that is scheduled to be delivered to Egypt in August this year, according to Rabie.

With an overall length of 147.4 meters and a width of 23 meters, Mohab Mameesh can dredge to a depth of 35 meters, while the Suez Canal is 24 meters deep.

In late March, the massive Panama-flagged container ship Ever Given was successfully refloated after being stranded in the Suez Canal for almost a week, thanks to cooperation between the SCA and Dutch firm Boskalis and its emergency response team SMIT Salvage.

The new dredger was named after former SCA chief Mohab Mameesh, under whose chairmanship the one-year Suez Canal expansion project was carried out and "the New Suez Canal" was inaugurated in August 2015.

Mameesh, who is currently a presidential adviser, also attended Monday's ceremony that was held on a platform opposite the giant blue dredger, at the massive workshop of the SCA's dredging department.

"I am extremely happy with the arrival of CSD Mohab Mameesh," Mameesh said, stressing that it was a necessary move to upgrade the SCA's weary fleet of dredgers.

Besides SCA officials, the ceremony was also attended by the governor of Ismailia and diplomats from the Dutch embassy in Egypt.

For his part, Mostafa Kenawy, head of the dredging department at the SCA, said that the Ever Given incident draws the attention of the SCA officials to the necessity of widening the southern part of the waterway whose soil is rocky.

"We need dredgers with high power and large capabilities, and this will be achieved by the presence of CSD Mohab Mameesh and the coming one Hussein Tantawy," the dredging department chief told Xinhua aboard the new dredger.

Linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, the Suez Canal is a major lifeline for global seaborne trade as it allows ships to travel between Europe and South Asia without navigating around Africa.

The waterway was officially opened for international navigation in late 1869.