It's cutting off other ships because when it lost power it drifted sideways and blocked the canal. It's now stuck in both embankments and the only vessels getting past are very flat submarines.

GP is referencing a comment on Instagram [0] that states that it cut off another ship enter the channel /before/ it grounded:

> @tjcsalisbury Yepp! And I believe they cut us off this morning entering the canal and then this happened and right after they ran aground the ship behind us lost power and almost hit us so it’s been a fun day lol but now we are just anchored here hopefully it won’t be to long but from the looks of it that ship is super stuck they had a bunch of tugs trying to pull and push it earlier but it was going nowhere there is a little excavator trying to dig out the bow

0: https://www.instagram.com/p/CMxEKHanW62/

...which is interesting. Two unrelated ships lost power at the same location on the same day? Curious.

You think someone was bribed to choke up the canal or something? What incentive would you have to do something like that? Is this part of a spy movie?

I don't think that happened but if I did I'd be thinking financial market manipulation for private gain long before intelligence agency shenanigans by states.

I'd imagine a long blockage has an effect on oil prices, as most oil coming from the Gulf States to Europe (and America's west coasts?) would normally travel through there.

It essentially plugs a giant oil 'pipeline'