Recent attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea have caused traffic disruptions for some of the world’s largest shipping and oil companies, which could have serious implications and harm the global economy.
According to Helmuth Hofstatter, CEO and founder of Logcomex, a company that offers technology for foreign trade through a complete end-to-end platform, helping managers plan, monitor and automate their supply chain, recent events in the channel can take ships to travel a much longer route.
“The Red Sea runs from the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait on the coast of Yemen to the Suez Canal in northern Egypt. The Canal is the fastest maritime route between Europe and Asia and saves shipping companies time and money by preventing ships from having to go around Africa. With the attacks, this scenario changes, which can increase the price of insurance and increase the cost of transporting products, generating cascading effects in logistics chains,” he says.
The world’s largest shipping companies – Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM Group and Evergreen – have already announced the interruption of transport through the Red Sea.
Flexport, the largest container carrier in the world, has also stated that it will avoid the Suez Canal. It currently has 2,206 TEUs worth of container ships that were expected to transit the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in the coming days. “Missile attacks on container ships at this maritime point have placed global shipping in a state of uncertainty,” says Hofstatter.
The oil company BP also stated that it is pausing the shipping of oil shipments passing through the Canal due to the current insecurity. “The price of oil has already risen after the oil company’s announcement and shows the importance of the channel for the market and is also starting to impact oil trade”, concludes the founder of Logcomex.