In a bizarre chain of events that has plagued the MV Ever Given, one of the largest container ships in the world, the vessel has now been impounded or “seized” by Egyptian authorities, who are now demanding more than $900 million for “incurred losses.”

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On 23rd March this year, MV Ever Given, which is a Taiwanese-operated vessel flying with a Panama flag, turned sideways after losing its course, and got wedged between the two banks of the Suez canal, and ran aground, causing massive disruption in one of the busiest sea routes in the world.

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The 200,000-tonne MV Ever Given got diagonally stuck at a narrow portion of the canal, due to bad weather, a sandstorm that made navigation extremely difficult.

In an earlier report, it was revealed that the entirety of the crew onboard the vessel were Indians.

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It is estimated that for each day of the blockage, cargo worth $9.6 Billion was held up between Asia & Europe. That comes out to a total of $57.6 billion over the course of 6 days.

Egypt itself lost about $12-15 million in revenue, for every single day of that blockage. This figure does not take into account all the expenses of refloating the ship and tugging it to a safe harbour.

During all this, a total of 420 vessels were stuck around the north and south entrance of the Suez Canal. The grounding of the ship and the intensive salvage efforts are also reported to have resulted in significant damage to the banks of the canal.

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The Suez Canal Authority, acting on a ruling passed by the highest economic court in Egypt, the  Ismailia Economic Court, impounded the vessel and presented a bill of $900 million to the Japanese owners of Ever Given, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Corp.

Each year, Egypt earns about 5.6-5.8 Billion dollars in revenue, thanks to the vessels and ships passing the Suez Canal.

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As per a report by Reuters, the SCA, or the Suez Canal Authority, as well as the various insurers and the Japanese owners of the vessel are negotiating about the $900 million figure. The same report claims that the figure was reached by the courts, based on "the losses incurred by the grounded vessel as well as the flotation and maintenance costs."

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Japan-based Shoei Kisen Kaisha, hasn’t released a statement on the impounding of the ship, nor about the sum they are being presented with.

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