We hope this message finds you well. The last week has brought another exceptional situation to the shipping industry in the form of security risks for vessels in the Red Sea region and the Gulf of Aden. The situation is highly fluid, as is the responses that the ocean carriers are having to implement to secure the safety of their crews and vessels, as well as to ensure shipping services to customers.
At the moment, the precautionary measures being taken by the carriers include a significant number of vessels being re-routed around the Cape of Good Hope.
These measures are essential for the safety of crews and vessels, but they will inevitably lead to delays in schedules, ranging from 2 to 4 weeks. Additionally, certain carriers have announced temporary diversions of operations at Haifa and Ashdod in Israel, and are not currently accepting bookings into the Red Sea region. As a consequence of these exceptional circumstances, this will impact shippers in the form of longer transit times, uncertainty in ETA’s and a knock-on effect on capacity and available schedules as vessels are tied up for longer.
The latter in particular is already impacting the cost to the carriers of 7,000km+ additional sailing which will ultimately affect rates for customers. Some carriers, such as Maersk, MSC, Hapag Lloyd, and CMA CGM have already introduced contingency surcharges
on affected shipments (both imports and exports), to the amounts of approximately US$1550.00 per container. LCL shipments, both imports and exports, are also affected, with surcharges ranging from US$20.00 W/M - US$70.00 W/M depending on the destination/trade lane.
Unfortunately, the situation is very fluid and as such any additional cost and charges that are applied to affected cargo will be on passed in our rates as we are aware of them. We understand that these developments may raise questions and concerns. We assure you that we are closely monitoring the market situation and will provide updates as soon as we receive further information from the shipping lines.
