President Abdel Fattah El Sisi ordered authorities to begin preparations to offload some containers from the Ever Given to make it lighter and easier to move, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Chairman Osama Rabie told Extra News (watch, runtime: 12:15). Offloading the containers will be a last resort move, Rabie said, adding that the SCA will do this if current efforts to move the vessel fail. The possible course of action was posed this weekend by ship owner Shoei Kisen. The stranded vessel has been blocking the canal since Tuesday and salvage teams had been working to dislodge it with dredgers and tugboats. There are now 352 vessels waiting to move through the Canal, with a further 23 to arrive for transit in the next day.

Offloading the vessel will likely add even more days to the canal’s closure as it requires a crane and other heavy equipment that is yet to arrive, a top pilot with the canal authority told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Today’s efforts to move the ship have resulted in damage to the ship’s front, a spokesman for Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the vessel’s manager, told Bloomberg. Water entered two tanks of the Ever Given, but were removed using high powered pumps. The vessel is now stable, but there is now a chance it will be unfit to leave the canal once it is dislodged.

How far have we come so far? Rabie further explained that the vessel has moved an additional four meters with the help of rising tides in the canal, adding to the 29 meters it moved yesterday. Meanwhile, Egypt is sending veterinarians onboard the ships to examine cattle and other livestock that have run out of provisions on the vessels waiting to cross the canal, according to an Agriculture Ministry statement.

THE IMPACT ABROAD- Companies such as Ikea and Caterpillar are considering taking detours to avoid the Suez Canal, going through the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and adding over a week to the Asia-Europe journey, reports Bloomberg.

Short-term disaster, long-term meh: With all the talk about disrupted supply chains getting worse, Robert Koopman, chief economist of the World Trade Organization is trying to put things into perspective, saying that firms might be overestimating the long-term damage of the blocked canal. In the short term, the Suez Canal block will lead to higher transportation costs, tighter supplies, and more delivery delays, but the situation in the long-term is “another test that the global economy will battle through in the weeks ahead, but will ultimately pass,” Koopman said. He called the situation “a great photo op,” but not in any way indicative of global supply chains potentially disintegrating or a warning against over-globalization.