Red Sea risks persist, Maersk still arranges ships to maintain Suez route
2024-01-02 16:53:35
Financial News Agency, January 2 (Editor Xia Junxiong) On Monday evening (January 1) local time, Danish shipping giant Maersk announced its latest itinerary. The company still plans to arrange some ships to pass through the region where risks have surged recently in the coming period. Suez Canal and Red Sea.
Houthi militants in Yemen continue to attack ships in the Red Sea and nearby waters. When the situation in the Red Sea changed, Maersk, like other shipping companies, chose to suspend route services in the Red Sea. However, Maersk said on Christmas Eve that it would return to the Red Sea, citing the launch of the United States’ Red Sea Convoy Operation.
However, after one of Maersk’s container ships was attacked last Sunday, the company announced that it would suspend all sailings through the Red Sea for 48 hours.
According to the latest itinerary announced by Maersk, the company will still arrange for more than 30 ships to pass through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the near future, but it has also shelved plans for some ships to use the Red Sea route.
Comparing Maersk’s latest itinerary with last week’s arrangements, the company has suspended at least 17 ships’ plans to pass through the Red Sea. Maersk said new plans would be announced at a later date but did not specify whether the ships would sail around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Maersk said its top priority was the safety of crews, ships and cargo and that plans would be updated on a case-by-case basis for each vessel, some of which would pass through the Suez Canal and others on longer routes around Africa.
The Suez Canal-Red Sea is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Under normal circumstances, more than 20,000 ships pass through the Suez Canal every year, accounting for approximately 14% of global maritime trade. The Red Sea is the only place that ships passing through the Suez Canal must pass.
Logistics platform Flexport data shows that compared with going directly through the Suez Canal, the voyage around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa takes 25% longer, which means that the cost has increased significantly.
About a third of the world’s container ships use the Suez Canal, and for ships traveling between Asia and Northern Europe, detouring around the Cape of Good Hope is expected to cost up to an additional $1 million in fuel.
It is worth mentioning that Maersk’s competitor, German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, said on Friday that it had decided to continue suspending the Red Sea route due to safety concerns and would conduct a new evaluation on Tuesday.
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2024-01-02 08:53:35
