The Suez Canal is a canal in Egypt. Opened in 1869, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa or carrying goods overland between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The northern terminus is Port Said.
The canal is 192 km (119 mi) long. It is single-lane with 4 passing places[1] north and south of the Great Bitter Lake, and links the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea.
The canal is owned and maintained by the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
Capacity
The canal allows passage of ships up to 150,000 tons displacement. It permits ships up to 16 m (53 ft) draft to pass, and improvements are planned to increase this to 22 m (72 ft) by 2010, allowing passage of fully-laden supertankers.
Some supertankers are too large. Others can offload part of their cargo onto a canal-owned boat and reload at the other end of the canal.
Alternatives
The main alternative is travelling around Cape Agulhas. This is the route for ships which are too large, and was the route before the canal was constructed and when the canal was closed. Today due to increasing piracy in Somalia this route is taken, due to safety reasons.
Also, before the canal's opening in 1869, goods were sometimes offloaded from ships and carried overland between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Capacity
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