Shipping in the Middle East disrupted due to US-Israeli attacks on Iran скачать в хорошем качестве

Shipping in the Middle East disrupted due to US-Israeli attacks on Iran

Following the U.S.-Israeli military strikes against Iran that began on Saturday, global attention has turned to the Strait of Hormuz. The war in Iran is choking off a key shipping route in the global supply chain, regarding oil flows, LNG transport and other cargo shipping. According to a commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Strait of Hormuz is now closed and any vessel attempting pass through will be attacked; a move that threatens to choke a fifth of global oil flows and send crude prices sharply higher. "Since the announcement of the navigation ban, we have observed only one container ship passing through this strait. On March 1st, only about three oil tankers could be tracked passing through the strait, which essentially means traffic has come to a halt. Currently, vessels are anchored on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz, waiting and observing. Some ships are docked at ports, uncertain about how to proceed with their plans." said Dr. Xu Kai, Senior Engineer, Director of Port & Shipping Big Data Laboratory at Shanghai International Shipping Institute. "The current closure of the Strait of Hormuz is estimated to result in around 706 oil tankers being stranded along the Persian Gulf coast now. The effects have not yet reached the industrial downstream, but products in industries relying on these raw materials may see widespread price hikes. Countries that are likely to be directly and significantly impacted are those with some industrial capacity and refining capabilities but limited oil and gas resources, making them heavily dependent on external sources. With global industrial capacity mainly concentrated in Asia, China, among the major manufacturing nations in East Asia, is relatively better positioned to withstand the pressure." Container shipping in the region is also disrupted. According to Xu, 7% of the world's container shipping goes between Asia and the Persian Gulf. "A shipping capacity of 450,000 twenty-foot-equivalent-unit of containers are stuck in the Gulf now." Major shipping lines all released notices about a suspension or rerouting cargo travel. MSC has suspended all bookings for worldwide cargo to the Middle East region until further notice and has declared an End of Voyage for all shipments destined for ports in the Arabian Gulf. Maersk has announced that all sailings on the Middle East-India to Mediterranean and Middle East-India to East Coast US services will be rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope.  It's paused future Trans-Suez sailings through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait for the time being. CMA has made similar announcement and started to apply Emergency Conflict Surcharge since Monday for related shippings. COSCO Shipping has ordered ships in or bound for the Gulf to seek “safe waters”, as traffic in the vital waterway is impeded in the aftermath of US-Israeli strikes on Iran. And it's listed the conditions of all vessels related to Gulf now. Hapag-Lloyd has introduced War Risk Surcharge for Gulf cargo and made similar cargo travel plans as the other major lines. "There are various rumors, some claiming freight rates have skyrocketed by over 130%, but I believe these are false. In reality, traffic on this route has come to a standstill; no ships are sailing. Any quoted price in a market with no transactions is invalid." said Xu. For container shipping, It's not a simple matter of paying more to get the ships running thousands of nautical miles more and get the cargo to the destination as soon as possible. In many cases this time, Xu says, it's demanding a new strategy combining road and water transport. "Some goods from countries in the UAE could potentially be transported overland to ports in Oman to be loaded onto ships and then connected to other destinations. This is a form of rerouting, but it involves transshipment through alternative maritime hubs. In the current market, many traditional liner companies probably haven't had time to adjust their plans accordingly. So, I believe there isn't an accurate market reassessment of prices yet. From a multimodal transportation perspective, for some very important cargo or materials, a premium of several times the normal rate might be considered reasonable." Nobody knows how long this closure will last. But Xu says, after the resumption of navigation, container shipping will bounce back relatively quickly, followed by LNG, and finally crude oil. ShanghaiEye Reporter: Zhang Shixuan