163 km in length between Port Said in the Mediterranean Sea and Suez in the Red Sea. It enables the maritime transfer (limited to ships of the Suez Max type) between Europe and Asia without having to circumvent Africa. From the 18,000 ships that have passed the Suez Canal approximately 3300 have been oil tankers (about 1.7 million barrels a day). In 2007, 358 LNG tankers crossed the Suez Canal transporting a total of 32,775 million tons of gas. The management of the Canal grants natural gas tankers from the Gulf States a 35% reduction and an additional reduction of 5% for quantities in excess of 500,000 tons and 10% for quantities up to 2 million tons and 15% for over 2 million tons of natural gas