In the early hours of Sunday, a source in the Suez Canal administration said that an attempt to move the stranded ship had failed, and another one would be made during high tide later in the day.
The tugs, Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, are already close to their destination.
Dredgers working to refloat the Ever Given container ship have so far shifted 27,000 cubic metres of sand around the vessel to reach a depth of 18 metres, the authority said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has ordered preparations for lightening the load of the stranded vessel, the Suez Canal authority head said, as quoted by Al Arabiya.
Egypt's Suez Canal has been blocked since Tuesday when the 224,000-tonne container ship ran aground on its way from China to the Netherlands. Several attempts have been made to move it and the ship even budged a little on Friday. As of Saturday, over 320 ships were queuing in the area to pass through.
The ship’s operator, the Taiwanese Evergreen Marine Corporation, said on Friday it was going to take two or three days to remove the ship from the shallows. The situation is complicated by the size of the vessel and the number of containers aboard.