Suez Canal traffic falls below “Ever Given” crisis level

The transit of merchant ships in the Suez Canal fell by 39% since the start of the attacks by the Yemeni Houthi militias in the Red Seaand reached its lowest level of traffic since the blockage caused by the accident of the freighter “Ever Given” three years ago.

On November 19, the day Yemen’s paramilitaries carried out their first attack and captured the cargo ship ‘Galaxy Leader’, the weekly average of ships passing through the canal was 79, a number that has fallen to 49 in the last two months. according to data from the Port Watch tool of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the University of Oxford.

Just a year ago, the average number of ships that crossed the canal in the moving week that ended on January 14 was 70 ships, including merchant ships and oil tankers.

On the other hand, the volume of merchandise transported fell by 56% during the same period, with its minimum on January 12, in which only 1,500,000 tons passed through, after the first military operations carried out by the military coalition led by the United States.

According to Port Watch, the sectors most affected at the moment are oil, and non-metallic chemicals and minerals.

In statements to Egyptian television, the head of the Suez Canal Authority, Osama Rabie, added that, in the first fortnight of the month, income also decreased, although he did not say how much.

Nor have any independent figures or reports been published regarding the economic losses caused by this crisis.

By way of comparison, the blockage of the canal by the Ever Given generated losses due to retention of global merchandise worth about US$ 9.6 billion a day (about 8.15 billion euros), as reported at the time by the analysis service Lloyd’s List.

Rabie insisted that the Suez Canal is “the safest, fastest and most economical route compared to the Cape of Good Hope route”.

He Red Seadelimited to the north by the Suez Canal and to the south by the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, is a route through which more than 19,000 cargo ships navigate annually, which represents 11% of global maritime traffic, in addition to being the most fast between Asian ports and the Mediterranean.

A large number of shipping companies have reduced or completely stopped their operations in the region and have chosen to use alternative routes, such as those that border the African continent in the south and whose use has grown by 33.2% in that period, despite the fact that it involves 10 more days of crossing and increases costs.

Egypt collects around US$8 billion annually from the Suez Canal, which is why its authorities have started a campaign to convince shipping companies to return to transit through the artificial passage due to the serious economic crisis that the country is suffering, marked by the lack currency.