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THE massive container ship blocking the Suez Canal has been shifted by nearly 100ft as hopes grow it could be back floating and freed within hours.
The Panama-flagged Ever Given smashed into the banks of the world-famous waterway almost a week ago, totally sealing off the key global trade route.
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Two additional tugboats have now arrived to aid 10 others working to free the skyscraper-sized container ship - and there are hopes Sunday's full moon will aid an attempt to further budge it at high tide.
It appears progress is finally being made as experts say they have already managed to move its stern and get its rudder and propeller working again.
Now those tasked with shifting the monster vessel have told NBC they have managed to move the vessel 98ft - around 30 metres.
Meanwhile, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered preparations for removing the cargo from the stricken ship.
That would involve transferring some containers to another vessel or to the canal bank.
Experts earlier told the BBC that such an operation would involve bringing in specialist equipment, including a crane that would need to stretch more than 60m (200ft) high, and could take weeks.
The 200,000-tonne Japanese vessel, which carries cargo between Asia and Europe, became stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal on Tuesday.
Since then, the Egyptian authorities have been unable to shift it and traffic through the canal - valued at more than £6.5billion a day - has been brought to a grinding halt.
The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, called in to work alongside tugboats already on scene, reached the Red Sea near the city of Suez yesterday.
They will now help nudge the 400m-long Ever Given as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side.
They have so far shifted 27,000 cubic metres of sand around the ship to reach a depth of 18 metres, the authority said in a statement.
Workers made two attempt to shift the vessel coinciding with high tides.
And a top pilot with the canal authority revealed amid hopes the boat could be back afloat soon.
"Sunday is very critical," the unnamed pilot said. "It will determine the next step, which highly likely involves at least the partial offloading of the vessel.
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"Taking containers off the ship likely would add even more days to the canal's closure, something authorities have been desperately trying to avoid.
"It also would require a crane and other equipment that have yet to arrive."
The pilot spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorised to brief journalists.
Richard Meade, an editor at Lloyd's List, added on Sunday: "Sources close to the salvage operation told me this morning that optimism within the team of experts on site was rising and they were hoping that the vessel could be moved within the next 24-48 hours."
Peter Berdowski - the CEO of Boskalis, the company hired to extract the boat - earlier said that he hoped to have the container ship salvaged within days.
He said: "The combination of the (tug) boats we will have there, more ground dredged away and the high tide, we hope that will be enough to get the ship free somewhere early next week."
Mr Berdowski added that if that didn't work, hundreds of containers would be removed from the ship by a crane to make it lighter.
On Saturday, the head of the Suez Canal Authority said strong winds were not the only cause for the Ever Given running aground.
Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei said an investigation was ongoing but did not rule out human or technical error.
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement - which managed the stricken vessel - maintains that its initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding.
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However, at least one initial report suggested a blackout struck the hulking vessel carrying some 20,000 containers at the time of the incident.
Rabei said he remained hopeful that dredging could free the ship without having to resort to removing its cargo, but added: "We are in a difficult situation. It's a bad incident.
Asked about when they expected to free the vessel and reopen the canal, he said: "I cant say because I do not know."
Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns the vessel, said it was considering removing containers if other refloating efforts failed.
The Ever Given is wedged about 3.7 miles north of the canal's Red Sea entrance near the city of Suez.
A prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipment chain.
Some 19,000 vessels passed through the canal last year, according to official figures. About 10 per cent of world trade flows through the canal.
The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East.
Already, Syria has begun rationing the distribution of fuel in the war-torn country amid concerns of delays of shipments arriving amid the blockage.
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Hundreds of ships are waiting to travel through the waterway, either to the Mediterranean or the Red Sea.
Dozens of others still listed their destination as the canal, although shippers increasingly appear to be avoiding the passage.
Russia's ambassador to Egypt on Sunday offered the country "any possible assistance", as efforts continue to free the ship.
In comments to the state-run RIA Novosti news agency, Russian ambassador Georgy Borisenko said that Moscow is ready to help any way it can.
"We hope that this problem will be overcome in the very near future, that the work of the channel will be restored, and, naturally, we are ready to provide our Egyptian friends with any possible assistance from our side," the ambassador said.
Meanwhile, the White House said it has also offered to help Egypt reopen the canal.
"We have equipment and capacity that most countries don't have and we're seeing what we can do and what help we can be," President Joe Biden said on Friday.
The vessel's Japanese owner, Yukito Higaki, president of Shoei Kisen, told a news conference that 10 tugboats had been deployed to dredge the banks and canal bottom.
A video from Vessel Finder recreating the crash by using the ship's onboard tracker shows the moment it veered to port - before suddenly going hard to starboard and hitting the banks.
Crews need to excavate a 50-to-60ft chasm beneath the grounded bow and stern of the stranded 400m vessel.
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By Saturday night 17,000 cubic metres of sand had been moved and work was said to be 87 per cent complete.
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