Osama Rabie, Chairman and managing director of Egypt's state-owned Suez Canal Authority, has said that authorities are negotiating a financial settlement with the owners of the Ever Given container vessel.
“We will reach over a billion dollars in compensation,” Osama Rabie said, as quoted by the CNBC.
“We will ask for a fair amount,” Rabie added. “We saved them so much by rescuing the ship without any major damage or losses.”
Rabie stressed that the ship would not be allowed to leave the Suez Canal if the issue of damages turns into a legal dispute.
Earlier, the head of the Suez Canal Administration, said that the incident with the container ship Ever Given, which caused the blocking of the Suez Canal, was due to human error. He also noted that a pilot from the canal administration was present on the ship, but reiterated that the Suez Canal leadership was not responsible for the incident.
On 1 April, it was reported that a commission to investigate the incident in the Suez Canal removed a "black box" from the ship.
The Ever Given ran aground on Tuesday last week, paralysing the crucial waterway. The ship was refloated on Monday by a fleet of 15 tugboats.
The damage to global trade could cost as much as $1 billion, according to the canal authority. The last 61 ships cleared the canal linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea on Saturday.