The head of the Suez Canal Authority, Lieutenant-General Osama Rabie Al-Khamis, Saturday confirmed to AFP that negotiations with the owner of the container carrier that disrupted navigation in the canal last March "have not reached anything" so far.

Rabie said that negotiations are continuing, "but we have not reached anything."

He added that the Canal Authority reduced its demands from $916 million to $600 million and then to $550 million.

"We offered payment facilities and suggested that we get one part at once and another part with a bank guarantee, but they (the owners) refused and offered $150 million, and this is of course a meager number for me."

"We seek to compensate for losses, not to gain, as we lost many units among those that participated in the rescue operations, some of which were completely out of service, and others were repaired," he added.

However, Lieutenant-General Rabie said that he still hoped to reach an agreement with the owner company, and in this case, "we will give up the case immediately and the boat can leave."

Sunday, an Egyptian court ruled to “fix the precautionary seizure signed on the Panamanian container ship,” as it ruled “it lacks jurisdiction” to hear the lawsuit filed by the ship’s owner company demanding the lifting of the precautionary seizure imposed by the Canal Authority.

The court decided to refer the case to the Egyptian Economic Court to consider the case on the 29th of this month.

March 23, the ship Ever Given ran aground and stopped in the course of the Suez Canal, disrupting navigation in both directions.

The ship, which is 400 meters long, 59 meters wide, and has a gross tonnage of 224,000 tons, was on a voyage from China to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

The disruption of navigation led to traffic jams in the canal and the formation of a long waiting queue of more than 420 ships.

However, on the third of April, the authority announced the end of the navigation crisis and the crossing of all waiting ships.

May 11th, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah approved a project to develop the Suez Canal that includes expanding and deepening the southern part of the canal, where the giant ship ran aground.