PARIS: The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and tensions in the Red Sea are reshaping trade routes, with Africa becoming a hub for global container ship traffic, according to logistics and maritime sources.
Over the past two months, the blockade has also forced shipowners to look for alternative land corridors to deliver food and manufactured goods by truck, as they can no longer reach Gulf coastal countries by sea.
What are the alternative routes for deliveries to the Gulf countries?
The Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah is becoming a new regional “hub” served by ships from maritime giants MSC, CMA CGM, Maersk and Cosco via the Suez Canal.
The cargo is then trucked along a desert highway to be delivered to places like Sharjah, Bahrain and Kuwait, which have been without sea service for the past two months.
“Jeddah port is not adequately sized to handle such import volumes and a port congestion situation is emerging,” said Arthur Barillas of The, co-founder of cargo shipping company Ovrsea. AFP.
According to data from Kpler Marine Traffic, 11 container ships docked in Jeddah on Thursday, nine of them waiting and an average wait of 36 hours before unloading, compared to 17 hours the previous week.
The shipowners have said they will use three ports outside the Strait of Hormuz: Oman’s Sohar and the ports of Khorfakkan and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, which are connected by land from the United Arab Emirates.
The port of Aqaba in Jordan serves as a base for shipping goods to Baghdad and Basra in Iraq, while a Turkish corridor also allows goods to enter northern Iraq.
On international routes, why do Asia-Europe container ships avoid the Suez Canal?
The situation began long before the war in Iran, but is closely related to the conflict.
The Red Sea bypass from the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to the Suez Canal dates back to Nov. 19, 2023, and the first attack on a container ship by Iran-backed Houthi militias off the coast of Yemen, CyclOpe, a commodity publication, said.
The diversion of ships has become systematic, said Ronan Boudet, head of container intelligence at Kpler.
They skirt Africa along its eastern coast to the Cape of Good Hope in southern South Africa before returning north towards Europe and the Mediterranean.
“With the current situation in the Gulf, we have put several more coins in the machine, it is not going to get better anytime soon,” said Edouard Louis-Dreyfus, president of French shipping giant Louis Dreyfus Armateurs. AFP.
“Today, 70% of the freight traffic that crossed the Red Sea in 2023 is diverted through the Cape of Good Hope,” added Yves Guillo, a supply chain expert at Ephesus, a Paris-based management consultancy.
According to data from the International Monetary Fund’s PortWatch platform based on ships’ GPS signals, commercial ship traffic through the Cape of Good Hope has more than tripled in three years, while traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait has more than halved.
Between March 1 and April 24 this year, an average of 20 commercial vessels circled the Cape of Good Hope each day, compared to six in the same period in 2023.
By comparison, traffic on the Red Sea has plummeted: from 18 daily transits through Bab al-Mandeb between March and April 2023, the average fell to five three years later.
What are the consequences?
Transport times between Asia and Europe have lengthened by an average of two weeks and costs have increased because between 30 and 50% more fuel and between 10 and 20% more ships are needed to ensure the same frequency of service, Guillo said.
The average price to transport a standard 40-foot container on major shipping routes rose 14% in April compared to the same period last year, he added, citing changes in Drewry’s freight index.
There are big differences between routes: some African ports are seeing their activity increase. Tanger Med Port Authority said it handled 11 million standard containers in 2025, an increase of 8.4%.
But Egypt lost revenue from Suez Canal tolls, which make up a large part of its revenue. According to CyclOpe, in 2024 it lost $7 billion, a drop of more than 60% compared to 2023.
