Suez Canal Egypt
The Suez Canal is an artificial waterway in Egypt with double traffic in most of its parts. The canal is 193.3 km long and connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and is divided longitudinally into two parts: north and south of the bitter lakes, and transversely into two separate passages in most of its parts to allow ships to cross in two directions at the same time between Europe and Asia, it is considered the fastest sea passage between the two continents and provides about 15 days on average of the journey time through the Cape of Good Hope route.
The idea of creating the canal began in 1798 with the advent of the French campaign on Egypt, Napoleon thought about building the canal, but this step was not crowned with success, and in 1854 de Lesseps was able to convince Mohammed Said Pasha of the project and obtained the approval of the Porte, whereby he granted the French company headed by de Lesseps the privilege to dig and operate the canal for 99 years. The construction of the canal took 10 years (1859 - 1869), and almost a million Egyptian workers contributed to the excavation process, of which more than 120 thousand workers died during the excavation as a result of hunger, thirst, epidemics, and ill-treatment. The canal was opened in 1869 during the reign of Khedive Ismail in a solemn ceremony and with a huge budget. In 1905, the French company tried to extend the franchise for an additional 50 years, but this attempt was unsuccessful. In July 1956, President Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which caused Britain and France, with the participation of Israel, to declare war on Egypt, the so-called triple aggression, which ended with the withdrawal of the three countries under international pressure and popular resistance.
The 1967 war caused the closure of the Suez Canal for more than 8 years, until President Sadat reopened it in June 1975, after the disengagement between Egypt and Israel and the ceasefire following the events of the October War. The canal then witnessed several projects to expand its course and reduce its transit time, which began in 1980, the last of which was on August 6, 2015 with the opening of the new Suez Canal Project.
The Suez Canal is one of the most important sea lanes in the world, due to the time, costs and effort it provides to the global economy, and this is evident in the passage of between 8% and 12% of the world trade volume through the canal, and the highest annual revenue reached about 9.4 billion US dollars in the fiscal year (2023/2022).
History of the channel
A map showing the route of the Sesostris canal between the Nile River and the Red Sea.
The ancient Egyptians were the first to build a canal to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea by the Nile River and the canal of Sisostris was the first canal built by Senusret III, one of the Kings of the Twelfth Dynasty in 1874 BC.M. Then it was neglected and reopened several times under several names, including the city I canal in 1310 BC.M. Then the canal of Dara I in 510 BC.M. Then the aqueduct of Ptolemy II in 285 BC.M. The canal of the Romans during the reign of Emperor Trajan in 117, and the canal of the Prince of Believers in 640, after the Islamic conquest of Egypt by Amr ibn al-As, remained open for 150 years until the Abbasid caliph Abu Ja'far ordered al-Mansur to backfill the canal that connected Fustat and Suez, and blocked it from the side of Suez, to prevent any supplies from Egypt to the people of Mecca and Medina rebelling against Abbasid rule, then Harun al-Rashid reopened it for a period and then the canal was closed until 1820, and when the Portuguese discovered the Cape of Good Hope route at the beginning of the XVI century AD, it changed with it The movement of World Trade.
The idea of digging a canal
An old drawing shows the route of the canal from the direction of Suez.
After the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese Vasco da Gama, the economy and trade of Mamluk Egypt and the economy of Venice, Naples, and Genoa were severely damaged, so the princes of Venice only sent delegations to Egypt in 1501 to offer the Sultan Al-Ghouri the idea of dispensing with caravan routes and replacing them with transportation across the Nile by digging a canal connecting the red and white Bahrain, but the circumstances of Egypt and its conflict with the Ottomans at that time, which ended with their occupation of Cairo in 1517, did not allow the project was even proposed by the famous German philosopher Leibniz to King Louis XIV as part of a comprehensive project to conquer Egypt, but King Louis did not want to anger the Sublime Porte in Astana on the one hand, and because his expansionist dreams were in Europe.
When the French Revolution took place, it entered into bloody armed conflicts with the kingdoms of Europe and was able to win only one Kingdom, England, France wanted to cut off the path of the British colonies in India by occupying Egypt, so the French campaign on Egypt took place in 1798. The Directoire government, which was ruling France, gave a direct order to Napoleon Bonaparte to carry out a campaign to dig a canal connecting Bahrain and so it was called the Bahrain Canal. Napoleon came out of Cairo with a group of engineers headed by an engineer named Lauper to inspect the engineering site at Suez and start digging. However, Lauper persuaded Napoleon to abandon the project because he discovered that the level of the Red Sea was higher than the level of the White Sea, which would cause the whole of Egypt to sink،
Napoleon returned to Cairo without achieving his goal. And that's until the project was taken over by a group of engineers from graduates of the famous Polytechnic School and they were fascinated by the greatness of Napoleon and they are called the San Simonians and they came to Egypt in the era of Muhammad Ali in 1832 and got permission from him to go to the site again and they found out that Bahrain is two levels and, however, both conditions were rejected.
Ferdinand de Lesseps.
After Napoleon returned to France in 1801 after the failure of his 13-month campaign against Egypt, he sent a diplomat named Mathieu de Lesseps to Egypt to choose a governor for Egypt loyal to France to rule it after the English chose Bardisi, Mathieu de Lesseps chose Muhammad Ali, an Albanian officer close to the sheiks of Al-Azhar, so he chose Muhammad Ali and gave him advice and assistance, which Muhammad Ali did not forget, and when Mathieu de Lesseps died, his young son Ferdinand de Lesseps came as an assistant consul for his country France in Alexandria Muhammad Ali received him with great hospitality and offered him to work in the palace as an educator and teacher of his son, Muhammad Said Pasha, and as a result, the friendship between the French diplomat and the prince consolidated.
After Said Pasha came to power, at a time when the de Lesseps family was suffering poverty and isolation since the fall of Napoleon's Empire, de Lesseps boarded the first ship bound for Alexandria to arrive on November 7, 1854, and met his friend, who became the Khedive of Egypt on November 11, and there de Lesseps offered the project of digging the canal to Said Pasha, who immediately accepted what his father refused, as if said wanted to express his gratitude to his old friend, who was serving him the food that his father deprived him of inside the palace.
De Lesseps entrusted the French engineer Fawazan Bey with the position of Chief Engineer of the canal drilling site, who was responsible for the daily life at the drilling site in all its details, from the progress of the drilling process, expenses and relations between workers of different nationalities, and the issue of forced labor on the Egyptian peasants on the orders of de Lesseps as the head of the Suez Canal International Maritime company, which he had founded to take over the drilling operations at the site. De Lesseps was subjected to pressure and accusations by the San Simonians that he stole from them the channel project that they offered to Muhammad Ali and rejected.
Establishment of the Suez Canal Maritime International company
In 1856, the governor of Egypt, Khedive Mohammed Said Pasha, granted the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps the second concession to dig the Suez Canal, and the concession stipulated that de Lesseps was granted a concession to dig and operate a sea canal connecting the red and Mediterranean seas for 99 years starting from the date of opening the canal for maritime navigation, in exchange for the Egyptian government to have 15% of the canal's profits, and soon Ferdinand de Lesseps founded the international company for the Suez Canal with a capital of 200 million French francs distributed over 400 thousand shares 500 francs, and the company's shares were floated on the international markets in November 1858, and the French subscribed about 207,111 shares, equivalent to half of the shares, while the Khedive subscribed About 177,642 shares and the rest of the Subscribed Shares were distributed in international markets
Digging the channel
Egyptian workers during the excavation of the canal with primitive tools.
The international company for the Suez Maritime Canal began digging the canal in April 1859 and continued for 10 years and used hundreds of thousands of Egyptian peasants in the forced labor system and continued that system until 1864, some sources estimate that there were more than 30 thousand workers in the canal at any period of its excavation and that the total workers amounted to one and a half million individuals of multiple nationalities and thousands of workers died as a result of cholera and other similar epidemics.
The first article of the regulation stipulated that the Egyptian government should provide workers to the company according to the requests submitted by the chief engineer of the company and according to the needs of the work, the second article specified the wages of workers ranging from one and a half Sharks to three sharks a day, and if the worker is under twelve bacon bread to every worker regardless of his age, the regulation provided for penalties The negligent worker is deducted from his wages in proportion to the amount of his negligence, and the worker who escapes loses the fifteen-day wages kept in the company's Treasury. The regulation also provided for the operation of a field hospital in the drilling area and ambulance centers equipped with medicines.
Engineering works during the excavation of the canal.
The suffering of the workers began when the company broke its promise to dig a freshwater canal to provide the workers with drinking water, which led to the sacrifice of thousands of workers who were exhausted by thirst and sand avalanches. Then thousands of people fell due to the spread of epidemics, and the company also violated its promise to provide advanced means of drilling, Egyptian workers were forced to work in harsh conditions, relying only on their sleeves, an ax, and a pose.
In December 1861, said Pasha himself went to the drilling area, and ordered the mobilization of 20 thousand young people to increase drilling rates, so the first years of drilling the canal witnessed the largest mobilization of workers, which in 1862 amounted to between 20 thousand and 22 thousand workers driven to the drilling yards per month, coming from the tribal and maritime sides, the workers mutiny and escape, and the workers of the tribal face showed a blatant challenge to the company, forcing the company to use the police to put down the rebellion of workers, chasing and torturing them.
Forced labor in the excavation of the canal.
The city of Zagazig was the sorting area for workers, in which the owners of slender bodies were excluded and strong young men were selected from them, who were sent to the Canal Zone on foot in four days, tied with ropes, each carrying a little water and a bag of dry bread, and they arrived at the drilling yards exhausted, and their arrival was followed by the issuance of orders to lay off the old workers who had spent a whole month, which was the duration of their stay. The excavations were one of the exciting sights that foreign tourists are keen to see in this era. The company persisted in its intransigence and did not pay the wages of workers, the shortage of supplies, clothes and shoes continued, and also established a detention center to send those who misbehave, and established a medical department and a patient ambulance center to care for workers, but orders were issued that this department focus its efforts only on the care of workers and foreign employees, which unfairly exposed workers to death from the severity of deadly diseases.
Between 8% and 12% of the world's seaborne trade volume passes through the canal, 35% of the trade volume to and from the ports of the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, 20% of the trade volume to and from the ports of India and Southeast Asia, and 39% of the trade volume to and from the Far East. The canal is characterized by being the longest canal in the world without mania, in which navigation operates day and night with a very small percentage of accidents, and it is possible to expand and deepen it at any time according to the development of ship sizes, and the canal administration uses electronic navigation control systems, including modern radar networks. For example, the distance between the port of Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and the port of Constanza (on the Black Sea) is 11,771 miles via the Cape of Good Hope, while this distance is only 1,698 miles via the Suez Canal, thus the canal achieves a distance savings of about 86%. The distance savings between Tokyo (Japan) and the port of Rotterdam (Netherlands) is 23% compared to the Cape of Good Hope route.
Sectors, branches, and expansions
The total length of the canal is 193.3 km and it is divided into several sections: from the illuminated shamandoura to the Port Said lighthouse, from the waiting area to the southern entrance, from Port Said to Ismailia, from Ismailia to Portofik, passing through the areas of Al-deverswar, al-Balah island, Crocodile Lake, bitter lakes and sulfur island. The length of the branches is 80.5 km, while the width of the water Sheet (north/south) is 280/345 meters, the depth of the channel reaches 24 meters, the maximum authorized submersible for crossing ships is 66 feet, the area of the water sector is 4800/5200 meters, the maximum static load is 240,000 tons, the permissible speed of loaded tankers is 13 km/h, the permissible speed of empty tankers is 14 km/h.
The length of the channel's navigable channel is 162 km "without spores" with average depths of up to 24 m. The channel's navigable channel is divided into 3 main sectors:
Northern sector: extends from the 0 km mark up to the 50 km mark numbering of the canal.
The Double part of this sector stretches for a length of 17 km (from the 0 km mark up to the 17 km mark numbering the channel).
The non-Double part of this sector stretches for a length of 33 km (from the 17 km mark to the 50 km mark of the canal numbering) and is a straight section without any curves. the width of this Section at the water surface is 351 meters and the width of the bottom is 121 meters. it is characterized by the limited speed of sea currents, which reaches only 2 knots. The Peace Bridge passes over this sector.
The new Suez Canal sector: it is a fully double sector with a length of 72 km (from the 50 km mark up to the 122 km mark of the canal numbering). Later, a duplication operation was carried out for the part connected to the new Suez Canal with a length of 10 km (from the 122 km mark to the 132 km mark numbering the canal) in the area of the lesser bitter lakes, and the other part of this sector with a length of 30 km (from the 132 km mark to the 162 km mark numbering the canal) is being expanded and deepened to bring the width of the canal in this part at the water surface to 323 meters and the width at the bottom to 167 meters with a depth of up to 27 meters.
Southern sector: it is a non-double sector with a length of 40 km (from the 122 km mark to the 162 km mark numbering the canal).
Subdivisions
These are the dual areas of the canal other than the new Suez Canal, which allows navigation in both directions and has a length of 80.5 km according to the kilometre-metric numbering of the start and end cycles of each branch.
The Port Said branch is 40.1 km long and was excavated in 1980(its length increased several times)
The 8.9 km long al-Balah branch was excavated in 1955
The crocodile hatchery is 4.3 km long and was excavated in 1980
The 8.4 km long Dvorsvar branch was excavated in 1980
The Bitter Lakes Branch is 11.8 km long and was excavated in 1955
A sulfur branch with a length of 7.0 km was excavated in 1955.
The new Suez Canal.
A postage stamp was issued in celebration of the opening of the new Suez Canal Project.
It is a new branch of the Suez Canal with a length of 35 km in addition to expanding and deepening the branches of the Bitter Lakes and al-Balah with a length of 37 km to bring the total length of the project to 72 km (from the 50 km mark to the 122 km mark of the canal numbering). The offshoot aims to avoid the old problems of the Suez Canal from stopping the northern convoy for more than 11 hours in the Bitter Lakes region and allows the Suez Canal to accommodate giant ships with a 65-foot draft, which will contribute to increasing the canal's income in the future. The cost of the branching amounted to 4 billion US dollars and the drilling operations were carried out through the Engineering Authority of the Armed Forces, which hired 17 civilian national companies working under its supervision.
The dry drilling phase of the project began on August 7, 2014, and ended within 9 months, then the water drilling (fracking) phase began and ended with the lifting of 258.8 million cubic meters of water-saturated sand. The project opened on August 6, 2015.
Southern region expansions
In May 2021, a new expansion project was launched in the southern region of the Suez Canal, specifically in the area that witnessed the run-down of the tanker ever Geffen.
The development plan includes the construction of a double canal in the lake area from kilo 122 to Kilo 132 numbering the Suez Canal, as well as the expansion of the Suez Canal from kilo 132 to Kilo 162 expansion of 40 meters to the East, deepening from 166 feet to 72 feet, thus creating two new channels with a length of 10 kilometers to improve navigation and prevent the impact of winds, waves and navigable currents on passing ships, and increase the carrying capacity of the canal.
Full channel duplication
In 2024, the head of the Suez Canal Authority announced the work of preliminary studies to implement the full duplication of the Suez Canal for the remaining single route in the canal with a length of about 80 km (50 km in the North and 30 km in the south), and feasibility studies are underway for the project.
Port Said canal
It is a project to raise 17 million cubic meters of sand with a length of 9.5 km and a width of 6.5 nautical miles to reach a depth of 16 meters inside the sea within 7 months, within the framework of planning to develop the port of East Port Said to raise its rating to become one of the top 10 ports in the world, by facilitating the entry and exit of ships independently of convoys crossing the Suez Canal 24 hours, and avoiding stopping ships at entry and exit due to the participation of the entry channel with the external navigation channel.
The old system
According to the old navigation system, ships were passing through the convoy system, which is a group of ships traveling at one speed, the intervals between them are approximately equal and three convoys enter the canal daily, two convoys from the North and a convoy from the south, and each convoy is subject to a specific regime in terms of when to enter the canal and the speeds allowed. The first Northern convoy starts entering the canal from Port Said from one o'clock after midnight until five o'clock in the morning, where the ships travel in one direction, and the northern convoy arrives at the Great Lakes to start waiting in the area west of the bitter lakes or east of them until the passage of the southern convoy, and the southern convoy coming from the Gulf of Suez departs in the navigational channel in the direction of the North and therefore no ships coming from the north are allowed to pass until all ships coming from the South Pass, and with the passage of the last ships of the southern convoy from al-Balah the first ships of the other northern convoy begin to pass the navigational channel towards the South. The northern convoy begins to enter the Suez Canal from Port Said, where it is received by guides to guide the convoy during its journey along the canal, and the northern convoy sets off in the direction of Suez, and continues to transit through Ismailia until reaching the Great Bitter Lakes region to receive on the hook waiting for the passage of the southern convoy, and each of the ships of the northern convoy waits in the bitter lakes in the place assigned to it according to the depth of the submersible, the bitter Lakes region is divided into the east of the deeper navigational corridor and the west of the navigational corridor, and giant ships with the submersible is above 45 feet in the direction of the eastern waiting areas (area E01, area e02, Area E03), which accommodates no more than 8 giant ships with a draft above 45 feet, and the North convoy waits 8-10 hours waiting for the passage of the South convoy coming from the Gulf of Suez, which passes non-stop. The southern convoy starts entering the canal from portofik at six in the morning and continues the direct crossing for 11 hours non-stop, heading north to Port Said.
Double-pass system
With the opening of the new Suez Canal, including the expansion and deepening of the branches of the bitter lakes and Baha with a total length of 72 km, the canal now allows direct transit of an average of 49 ships in both directions and reduced the transit time of all ships to the canal to 11 hours instead of 18 hours, and also allowed the transit of ships with a submersible up to 66 feet in both directions without stopping, to increase the capacity of the Suez Canal in the transit of ships of various loads from 49 ships per day on average to reach 97 ships per day on average.
The northern exit of the Suez Canal.
The idea of the Axis Project dates back to the end of the Seventies when the engineer according to Allah al-kafrawi, the then Minister of Housing, put it to President Anwar Sadat, but the project did not come to light, then the project was re-submitted to President Hosni Mubarak, but also the project did not come to light and no executive steps were taken towards it. In 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood presented the Suez Canal Axis development project as part of their Ennahda project during the 2012 Egyptian presidential election. In 2013, the government of Dr. Hisham Qandil held a press conference under President Mohamed Morsi in which it announced that an agreement would be reached with the consulting office that would carry out the general plan of the project and contract with it by the first of September 2013, as the first tender for the implementation of the general plan was already made at the end of April 2013, and the duration of the implementation of the general plan will be 9 months. On August 5, 2014, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced the actual start of the construction of a new shipping lane for the Suez Canal, the deepening of the existing shipping lane, and the development of the entire Suez Canal axis, to maximize the role of the Suez Canal region as a global logistics and industrial center integrated economically, urban and environmentally balanced, and seeks to make the region a sustainable hub competing globally in the field of logistics services, advanced industries, trade and tourism. The region includes three governorates, Port Said, Suez, and Ismailia, and has attractive possibilities in the fields of transport and logistics, energy, tourism, communications and Information Technology, Agriculture, and real estate. On August 6, 2015, the new Suez Canal project was opened for work and the reception of sea tankers with a double traffic system
Channel axis ports
They are represented by both:
The port of East Port Said is on the north-eastern entrance to the eastern branch of the Suez Canal.
The port of West Port Said is on the northern entrance to the Suez Canal and is considered one of the most important Egyptian ports due to its privileged location at the entrance to the largest shipping lane in the world.
The port of Sokhna is at the southern entrance of the Suez Canal on the Red Sea, which makes it a strategic advantage for handling goods in transit through the busiest and busiest commercial waterways in the world.
The port of Suez or Portofik is on the Red Sea coast at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal in Egypt.
Adabiya port is on the western shore of the Gulf of Suez and at a distance of about 17 km from the city of Suez.
Canal territory
It is a term given to three Egyptian governorates, namely Suez governorate, located east of the Delta north of the Gulf of Suez at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal, bordered to the north by Ismailia governorate and North Sinai governorate, bordered to the South by the Red Sea governorate, bordered to the East by South Sinai governorate, and bordered to the West by Cairo governorate and Giza governorate. Ismailia governorate, located on the eastern border of the Arab Republic of Egypt in the middle of the Suez Canal, is divided into two parts, a western section in Africa, and an eastern section in the continent of Asia, bordered on the East by the Sinai and the Suez Canal, which penetrates the Crocodile Lake and the bitter lakes, on the West the eastern border of the Delta along the Damietta branch, on the south the road connecting Suez and Cairo, and on the North Port Said and Lake Manzala. Port Said governorate, located at the northeastern tip of the Arab Republic of Egypt, at the head of the Suez Canal, is bordered to the north by the Mediterranean Sea, to the South by Ismailia governorate, to the West by Damietta governorate and to the East by North Sinai governorate.
Land routes around the canal territory,
The main roads of the network are: Cairo / Ismailia desert road, Cairo / Suez desert road, Cairo / Port Said Road (regional axis of the East), Ismailia/Port Said road, shader Azzam road (road parallel to the peace tree), war Road 36, Salhiya road, Cairo / Ismailia agricultural road, Fardan/faqus Road, Regional Ring Road, International Coastal Road.
Peace Bridge,
The Peace Bridge is the longest automobile suspension bridge in Egypt, connecting the continents of Asia and Africa passing over the shipping channel of the Suez Canal. Its construction began in October 1997 and was opened in August 2001 to contribute to accelerating the pace of development in the Sinai by transferring traffic and transportation to and from it and linking it with the rest of Egypt's governorates. The bridge connects the cities of Al-Qantara East and Al-Qantara West and is located south of the city of Al-Qantara north of Ismailia, 20 km from the Al-Fardan bridge. Its length is 9.5 km with a height of 70 meters above sea level, and its navigational opening width is 404 meters, which allows any future expansions of the Suez Canal, its main slope reaches 3.3%, its design tonnage is up to 90 tons, the height of its two main towers is 154 meters above the ground, and it provides two lanes of traffic in each direction at a traffic speed of 80 km/h. The project was implemented at a total cost of 680 million Egyptian pounds with co-financing of 60% from the Japanese government and 40% from the Egyptian government.
Floating bridges,
Al Nasr bridge in the AL RASWA area of Port Said, and was opened on December 28, 2016.
The Martyr Ahmed Mansi bridge in Nimra Area 6 in Ismailia, was opened on December 23, 2017.
The bridge of the martyr Abanoub saber in the Qantara area, and was opened on December 23, 2017.
The bridge of the martyr Major General Taha Zaki in the south of Ismailia, opened on May 5, 2019.
The Martyr Ahmed Omar al-shabrawi Bridge in the Shatt area of Suez opened on May 5, 2019.Alfardan bridge for Railway trains crossing the Suez Canal.
The railway,
It is a metal movable railway bridge that was first built in 1920 with a length of 70 meters and lasted until 1942. It was recreated a second time in 1943 with a length of 150 meters and lasted until 1952. Its creation was repeated for the third time in 1952 with a length of 210 meters and remained until 1963. It was renewed for the fourth time in 1963 with a length of 316 meters and remained until 1967. Its fifth modern version was opened in November 2001. As a result of the duplication of the Suez Canal in the bridge area after the completion of the new Suez Canal Project, a project is currently underway to upgrade it to include two railway tracks and tracks for vehicles and pedestrians and rehabilitate it to pass over the two canal corridors.
Tunnels
The western entrance to the tunnel of Martyr Ahmed Hamdi.
The tunnels passing under the canal include working tunnels and ongoing projects with a total of 8 tunnels distributed over cities (Port Said, Ismailia, Fayed "Ayu Sultan", Suez)
Currently operating tunnels:
The 3 July tunnels in South Port said: they are two tunnels (North and South) for cars in South Port Said, which were opened in November 2019. Each tunnel serves one traffic direction by the number of two traffic lanes, the length of each of which is 3920 m.each of the two adjacent tunnels is connected by four emergency transverse tunnels.
Two tunnels (North and South) for cars in the north of Ismailia, which were opened in May 2019. Each tunnel serves one traffic direction by the number of two traffic lanes, the length of each of which is 5820 m.each of the two adjacent tunnels is connected by four emergency transverse tunnels.
The Tunnel of the Martyr Ahmed Hamdi in Suez:
The Southern Tunnel: it is the first automobile tunnel passing under the Suez Canal and was opened in 1983 with a tunnel length of 1.64 km, a total length of 4.20 km with entrances and exits, and a diameter of 10.40 meters, to accommodate 300 vehicles per hour in each direction, and the level of the deepest point in the tunnel is 51 meters below sea level. The tunnel is named after the martyr Major General Ahmed Hamdi, deputy director of the Corps of Engineers, who was martyred on October 14, 1973, during the laying of bridges crossing the Suez Canal in front of the Third Field Army during the October War.
North Tunnel: it is a tunnel parallel to the Shahid Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel (1), and the movement passes in Tunnel from West to East and Tunnel from East to West.
Tunnels under construction:
Two tunnels in the Abu Sultan area of Fayed City, Ismailia governorate.
Irrigation projects around the canal
Sponsorship of peace
Peace Care is one of the giant development projects inside Sinai, where it contributes to adding about 620 thousand acres to the Egyptian agricultural area. The branch and its branches stretch for a length of 262 km, the first stage of which is located west of the Suez Canal with a length of 87 km from its Outlet On The Nile Damietta branch and up to the Suez Canal to serve a total of about 220 thousand acres, and the branch passes along its route through five governorates Damietta, Dakahlia, Sharqiya, Ismailia and Port said. the infrastructure works for this stage have been completed at a total cost of 300 million Egyptian pounds.
The patronage of Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah,
It is the second phase of the Tareat Al-Salam project and extends east of the Suez Canal from the Trans-Nile embankment below the canal with a length of 86.5 km and a total length of the embankment and its branches of 175 km to transport Nile water to the Sinai, and was completed in 2001 with a drainage capacity of 160 M3/s and at a total cost of 188 million Egyptian pounds. The Canal serves an area of 400 thousand acres in Sinai, and the excavation and lining of the canal and industrial works on it with a length of 86.5 km and the protection of its bridges have been completed.
The care of Ismailism,
The Ismailia Canal, or the" sweet Suez Canal " in ancient times, is an irrigation canal established during the reign of Khedive Ismail in 1860 and named after him. The course of the branch starts from the Nile at Shoubra, 7 km north of Cairo, and runs towards the Northeast penetrating the Eastern in the southwest to Ismailia, then branching into two branches, one heading north to port said, the other heading south to Suez and ending at its Bay. The length of the branch from the Nile to the Crocodile Lake is 136 km, the length of the Port Said branch is about 90 km, while the length of the Suez branch is about 87 km, and includes more than 26 bridges and Huis.
The Magic of the Serapeum,
It is the largest project to transfer Nile water downstream of the Suez Canal for 175 million pounds, to serve the area of East Suez, lakes, and New Ismailia.it consists of four pipelines with an internal diameter of 3.2 meters, an external one of 4 meters, with a length of 400 meters for each pipeline, at a depth of 60 meters below the ground surface and under the bottom of the canal by 16 meters, and targets irrigation and reclamation of 100 thousand acres in the east of the canal.
Competing projects of the channel
The city of Eilat is on the Red Sea.
The city of Tel Aviv is on the Mediterranean Sea.
Bahrain Israel TV channel
Dead Sea Canal
The Bahrain Canal or the Dead Sea Canal is a project signed in December 2013 by Jordan, Palestine and Israel at the headquarters of the World Bank to establish a canal to connect the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. The project includes the laying of four pipelines between Bahrain up to 180 km long to transport 100 million cubic meters of water annually from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, and the establishment of a desalination plant in the city of Aqaba, Jordan, to distribute desalinated water to the three parties. The canal in its current design has no impact on the Suez Canal, but the agreement to dig the canal has raised previous suggestions about the possibility of creating a canal under the name of Ben-Gurion Canal or Ashkelon Canal serving those coming from the Gulf of Aqaba in the direction of Eilat on the Red Sea and then digging a canal from Eilat to Haifa or Ashdod on the Mediterranean Sea, a distance of 522 kilometers. But the cost of a project of this magnitude is very high and no serious steps towards its implementation have been announced.
Israeli railway line,
It is a project announced by Israel in 2013 that aims to establish a railway line connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, starting from the port of Eilat on the Red Sea and ending at the port of Haifa or Ashdod overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. the idea of the project is based on shipping and transporting goods and passengers to be an alternative to the Suez Canal, and extends for a distance of 350 km, where it will connect Bahrain in no more than two hours. However, the cost of shipping, transportation, and time will not be comparable to the Suez Canal, where it is necessary to transport one cargo container size of 40 feet by a special railway car, compared to one cargo ship transporting 19 thousand containers, 19 thousand railway cars must be provided to transport all those containers from one ship, then unload the cargo in Haifa or Ashdod, and then load the goods again through onash on boats, which requires time and high cost, unlike the Suez Canal.
Iranian railway line,
It is a railway project involving companies from Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia, to connect northern Iran and Azerbaijan. It is the sector that is considered a very important part of the northern sea route corridor, without which it would be impossible to implement the entire project. Therefore, this sector of the project is of great interest, especially in the field of cooperation between each of the three countries. The railway distance from Azerbaijan to the Caspian Sea is about 165 km. However, the project is met with several disadvantages, namely its passage through mountainous areas with difficult terrain, and the international pressure exerted on the countries passing through the line to prevent them from participating in this project, to prevent the strengthening of its international status and the development of its economy, especially the state of Iran. It is expected that this project will negatively affect the Suez Canal, as it forms an artery for transporting cargo and oil shipments from Southeast Asia and the Arabian Gulf region to the northern Mediterranean countries, Europe, and the United States. However, this potential impact is still in question, given the difficulties encountered by the Northern Sea Route project.
Petroleum pipelines,
The Turkish port of Ceyhan for oil transportation.
Oil tankers are the third customer for ships passing through the Suez Canal, with container ships coming first, and then casting cargo ships in second place. Oil tankers account for about 19.6% of the number of ships passing through the Suez Canal, while their cargo accounts for 22% of the total cargo passing through the canal. The position of oil tankers has declined from the number one customer of the Suez Canal in the Sixties to the third place currently, due to the decline in the quantities of Gulf oil destined for Europe during the last two decades, from an average of 400 million tons per year to 130 million tons per year, due to the multiplicity of alternatives from the North Sea, Caspian and Black Sea oil, and the growing Asian demand for Gulf oil in the East and Southeast Asia region. The navigable channel of the canal accommodates giant oil tankers, whose tonnage exceeds 220 thousand tons with the ability to attract about 64% of the ships of the world's fleet of oil tankers with their full tonnage. The oil pipelines located in the Arab region represent a strong competitor to the Suez Canal and the volume of oil trade passing through it, which is represented by five pipelines Other than the Egyptian oil pipeline "Sumid", its capacity reaches about 362.5 million tons per year, and in the case of operating at full capacity significantly affects the quantities of oil transported through the Suez Canal, especially that transporting oil through pipelines is much cheaper than sea transportation.
These lines are represented by:
Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline between Iraq and Syria
Iraq (Kirkuk) - Turkey (Ceyhan)pipeline
The line of Israel (Eilat) - Palestine (Ashkelon).
Iraq (Kirkuk) - Syria (Banias) pipeline.
Iraq-Lebanon pipeline.
Sumid line,
Sumid is an oil pipeline established in 1977, extending from Ain Sokhna on the Gulf of Suez to Sidi kreir on the Mediterranean coast of Alexandria and is a complementary project to the Suez Canal to transport oil from the Arabian Gulf region to the Mediterranean coast. It is owned by the Arab Company for petroleum pipelines "sumid", in which companies from Egypt, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar participate. The sumid line consists of two parallel pipelines, each 320 km long, with a capacity of 9 thousand tons/hour, and a diameter of 42 inches. these lines are buried underground and covered with an insulation layer to protect the line from corrosion. the thickness of the pipe at Ain Sokhna reaches 30 mm and gradually decreases to a thickness of 8 mm in Sidi Kerir, and in some places, such as those under the Nile River, the thickness reaches 60 mm. The capacity of the line reaches 120 million tons of crude oil per year, while the tonnage of oil tankers transiting the canal reaches 140 million tons, as part of an integration process between the summed line and the canal, where it is used to transport volumes of Arab oil bound for Europe and the United States inside oil tankers, which cannot cross the Suez Canal with their full load to increase their submersible from the submersible of the canal, so they use the line to lighten their load in Ain Sokhna and then recover it in Sidi kreir heading to Western countries.
Competing routes of the channel
Cape of Good Hope, Cape Agulhas, the Mediterranean - Dead Sea Canal, the Panama Canal, the Nicaragua Canal, and the new Silk Road
Cape of Good Hope Road or (in English: Cape of Good Hope is a commercial sea route passing through Cape Akolas, discovered at the end of the fifteenth century, commercial ships between India, East Asia, and the countries of Europe passed through it in the past, to escape from the control of the Mamluk state in Egypt on the short ancient maritime trade route, part of which was running on land before the Suez Canal was dug, and the European kingdoms preferred at that time to take the longer and more dangerous Cape of Good Hope route, bearing the loss of a large part of trade, following the imposition of exorbitant fees by the Mamluk state to pass through its territories and control them by the road, and the spread of bandits and the destruction of many caravans as a result of the weak grip of the Mamluk state at that time. The Cape of Good Hope, which is a cape of land, is located near the city of Cape Town in South Africa, 150 km west of the southernmost point of the continent of Africa, which is called Cape Agulhas.
Northeast Corridor,
The Suez Canal route (red) and the alternative route through the Northern Sea Route (blue).
The northern sea route is a maritime shipping corridor connecting the Asian and European continents and passing through Russia, Iran, and India, representing a strong competition to the Suez Canal route. The history of the trade route from Asia through the Caspian Sea and Russia to Europe began several centuries ago, but there are attempts to revive this route using the latest technical means, to transport cargoes and goods in transit from India, Iran, and the Persian Gulf countries, across the Caspian Sea to Russia, and from there to northern and Western Europe. The modern project is based on the agreement signed between Russia, India, and Iran in 2000 on the international transport corridor "north–south". several Arab countries, including the Sultanate of Oman and Syria, have joined the project, and it is expected that some countries of the Arab Gulf countries will join it, which will entail an increase in cargo circulation between the countries of the Near and Middle East, as well as India on the one hand and Europe on the other. According to the estimate of the time and distance between the Northern Sea Route and the Suez Canal, the route represents a realistic alternative to the canal, as the shipments transported by it from the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf via Iran, the Caspian Sea, and Russia to the countries of northern and Eastern Europe take a shorter time than the Suez Canal route.
The project, if completed, will form a new economic pole, as it will include the countries of South Asia (India and Pakistan), the countries of Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan), in addition to Georgia, as well as Afghanistan and Turkey, then Ukraine, and then west to Belarus, Poland and Germany, east to the cities of Central and eastern Russia, and North and west to the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). This will create a unique situation because the Caspian region will become a hub for international transport corridors, in addition to its oil importance, given the huge reserves of oil and gas contained in the Caspian Sea and its coasts.
However, despite these advantages achieved by the project, it is still far from being completed, due to the economic problems and difficulties that correspond to its implementation, which are represented by political problems between the countries through which the road passes. The project is also accompanied by many political difficulties stemming from the fear of European countries and the United States of the existence of coordination of energy policies between Russia, Iran, and other countries producing gas, oil, and other energy ores, and the impact of the economic changes that the project will bring on international balances and maps of influence in the world.
Aphorisms,
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Suez Canal On behalf of the Suez Canal International Maritime company and in implementation of the decision of its board of directors, we strike the first pickaxe in this land to open the doors of the East to the trade of the West and its civilization through the entrance to the East Suez Canal.
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser
Suez Canal nationalizes the international Suez Canal maritime company Egyptian joint stock company Suez Canal.
Egyptian President Mohamed Anwar Sadat
Suez Canal In the name of Egypt, we open our canal as an artery of prosperity. An artery of peace An artery of love.
