The Suez Canal Authority won’t let the mega container ship that blocked the Suez Canal last month get underway until its owner agrees to pay compensation, SCA chairman Osama Rabie suggested in a televised interview on Thursday (watch, runtime: 22:19). “The vessel will remain here until investigations are complete and compensation is paid … If an agreement is reached on compensation, the boat will move immediately,” he said. The Ever Given has been moored in the Great Bitter Lake since it was dislodged at the end of March while investigators assess the ship and try and ascertain what caused it to veer into the bank of the canal

A nine-figure price tag? Though Rabie stopped short of naming a figure during the interview, he said last week that the authority could be chasing insurers and the ship’s Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen, for as much as USD 1 bn in compensation. This includes the lost revenues, which have been estimated to be around USD 15 mn per day and the cost of repairing the damage done to the canal .

Still no signs of an agreement: One advisor to the authority leading the investigation said at the start of the month that an agreement could be reached in just 3-4 days. Egypt has reportedly been in talks with Shoei Kisen for a week to settle the issue outside of court, but the two sides are yet to reach an agreement. In the event the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the matter will be handed over to Egyptian prosecutors, who will file a case against the company in the local courts.