clear of mines. The canal was then reopened by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat aboard an Egyptian destroyer, which led the first convoy northbound to Port Said in 1975, at his side stood the Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. UN presence The UNEF mandate expired in 1979. Despite the efforts of the United States, Israel, Egypt, and others to obtain an extension of the UN role in observing the peace between Israel and Egypt, as called for under the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979, the mandate could not be extended because of the veto by the Soviet Union in the UN Security Council, at the request of Syria. Accordingly, negotiations for a new observer force in the Sinai produced the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), stationed in Sinai in 1981 in coordination with a phased Israeli withdrawal. The MFO remains active under agreements between the United States, Israel, Egypt, and other nations. Bypass expansion In 2014, months after taking office as President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered the expansion of the Ballah Bypass from wide to wide for . The project was called the New Suez Canal, as it allows ships to transit the canal in both directions simultaneously. The project cost more than LE 59.4 billion (US$9 billion) and was completed within a year. Sisi declared the expanded channel open to business in a ceremony on 6 August 2015. 2021 obstruction On 23 March 2021, at around 05:40 UTC (07:40 local time), the Suez Canal was blocked in both directions by the ultra-large Evergreen G-class container ship Ever Given. The ship, operated by Evergreen Marine, was en route from Malaysia to the Netherlands when it ran aground after strong winds allegedly blew the ship off course. Upon running aground, Ever Given turned sideways, completely blocking the canal. Although part of the length of the canal is paralleled by an older narrower channel which can be used to bypass obstructions, this incident occurred south of that area, in a section of the canal where there is only one channel. The site was located at . When the incident began, many economists and trade experts commented on the effects of the obstruction if not resolved quickly, citing how important the Suez was to global trade; the incident was likely to drastically affect the global economy because of the trapped goods scheduled to go through the canal. Among those goods, oil shipments