Paris (awp/afp) – The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but mainly the tensions in the Red Sea, are reshaping the logistical routes for the trade of goods, with Africa becoming a key player in the global traffic of container ships, according to logistical and maritime sources.
Locally, for the past two months, the blockade of Hormuz has also pushed shipowners to find alternative land corridors to deliver goods and manufactured products that can no longer arrive by sea to the Gulf countries.
– What are the alternative routes for delivering goods to the Gulf countries?
The Saudi port of Jeddah on the Red Sea is becoming a new regional “hub”, where ships from the maritime giants MSC, CMA CGM, Maersk, or Cosco arrive via the Suez Canal. The cargo is then transported by truck on a desert highway to deliver to the Gulf countries like Sharjah, Bahrain, or Kuwait, which have not been served by sea for two months.
However, “the port of Jeddah is not at all designed to handle all these import volumes, and a port congestion phenomenon is emerging,” said Arthur Barillas de Thé, co-founder of OVRsea, a transport commissionaire, a kind of travel agency for goods, to AFP.
According to data from Kpler Marine Traffic, eleven container ships were docked at Jeddah on Wednesday and nine were waiting, with an average wait time of a day and a half before unloading, instead of 17 hours the previous week.
– What are the other alternative routes for delivering goods to the Gulf countries?
Shipowners have announced the use of the Omani port of Sohar, and two Emirati ports, Khor Fakkan and Fujairah, located outside the Strait of Hormuz and connected by land to other cities in the United Arab Emirates.
The port of Aqaba in Jordan serves as a base for sending goods to Baghdad or Basra, in Iraq. And a Turkish corridor also allows goods to be transported to northern Iraq.
– On international routes, why do container ships from Asia to Europe avoid the Suez Canal?
This began well before the war in Iran. But it is closely related to Iran.
The avoidance of the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the Suez Canal dates back to November 19, 2023, during the first attack by the Houthi militia, an ally of Iran, from the Yemeni coast, against a container ship, as recalled by the specialized review in raw materials, CyclOpe.
The rerouting of boats has now become systematic since the resumption of Houthi attacks, notes Ronan Boudet, containers market analyst at Kpler.
They bypass Africa by following its eastern coast to the Cape of Good Hope, south of South Africa, before heading back north to Europe and the Mediterranean.
“With the current situation in the Gulf, several pieces have been thrown into the machine, it won’t improve soon,” emphasized Edouard Louis-Dreyfus, President of Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, to AFP.
“Today, 70% of the goods flows that passed through the Red Sea in 2023 are diverted via the Cape of Good Hope,” specified Yves Guillo, an expert in supply chains at the Efeso firm.
According to data from the International Monetary Fund’s Portwatch platform, based on GPS signals from ships, container ship passages at the Cape of Good Hope have more than tripled in three years, while those through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Suez Canal have decreased by more than half.
Between March 1 and April 24, 2026, twenty container ships passed the Cape of Good Hope on average each day, compared to six during the same period in 2023.
In comparison, container ship navigation in the Red Sea has plummeted: from 18 passages per day through Bab-el-Mandeb between March and April 2023, the average dropped to 5 three years later.
– What are the consequences?
Transport times between Asia and Europe have lengthened by an average of two weeks, costs have increased because 30 to 50% more fuel is required, and 10 to 20% more additional vessels are needed to ensure the same frequency of passages, detailed Mr. Guillo.
The average price paid to transport a standard 40-foot container on the main sea routes increased by 14% in April 2026 compared to April 2025, he added, citing the Drewry freight rate index, with significant disparities between different routes.
Some African ports have seen their activity increase. The port of Tanger Med handled 11 million standard containers in 2025 (+8.4%), according to its website.
But Egypt has lost revenue from Suez Canal tolls, which were a significant part of its income. According to CyclOpe, in 2024, the country lost $7 billion in revenue, a decrease of over 60% compared to 2023.
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