War disrupts Carrier or Vessels movements , Red Sea crisis
Most carriers have for now suspended either all bookings into the Persian Gulf, or in some cases “just” for reefer containers.
The conflict is widening, also impacting shipping.
UKMTO reports a vessel in the port of Bahrain being struck by 2 projectiles causing a fire. This is reportedly the US-flagged product tanker “Stena Imperative”.
Several ports in the Gulf has seen varying degrees of operational suspensions. Jebel Ali is again fully operational after a small fire caused by falling debris.
Looking at data from vesselfinder, there are presently 17 container vessels with a size larger than 4000 TEU trapped inside the Persian Gulf with a combined capacity of 156.000 TEU. In addition there are roughly 50 container vessels with a size smaller than 4000 TEU. All in all this means approximately 200.000 TEU of container vessel capacity is trapped inside the Gulf.
The trapped fleet would be the world’s 13th largest carrier, and it equals some 0.6% of the global container capacity being unavailable. For comparison January data from Alphaliner indicated the global idle fleet was 0.6%.
The image below from vesselfinder shows large aggregations of vessels now waiting at anchor at either end of the Strait of Hormuz with almost no-one transiting.
The conflict is widening.
There was a drone attack on the port of Duqm in Oman which is outside of the Gulf, facing the Arabian Sea.
There has been a missile impacting the British airbase in Cyprus in the Mediterranean, and an additional attack saw 2 drones shot down. Greece is sending naval and air assets to Cyprus to aid in the defense. This raises a question related to maritime safety in the East end of the Med and the possibility of increasing warrisk surcharges in this area as well.
Israel has begun attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Oil prices are up 8-9% which will trickle down and impact bunker fuel prices as well - and hence fuel surcharges. Some 20-30% of all exported oil globally transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
As mentioned a few days ago, these operational disruptions are likely to cause congestion in many container hubs in Asia if this lasts more than a few days. It is similar to when the Red Sea crisis first erupted and caused congestion because cargo suddenly could not be shipped to the intended destination. Add to this the fleet now trapped inside the Gulf and we are facing tactical capacity shortages.
Continuation of the situation will lead to upwards spot rate pressure also on other trades and shippers should prepare for this.
Shippers should keep in mind that (emergency) surcharges do not need to be justified solely as a cost pass-through. Rates are determined by supply and demand and, similar to the early stages of the Red Sea, the magnitude of the surcharges are determined by this as well, and not a pure cost-calculation.
Today is day 834 of the Red Sea crisis and day 3 of the Hormuz crisis.
