Cape of Good Hope diversion adds 6,000 nautical miles and three or four weeks to delivery times and has driven up oil prices
More than 100 container ships have been rerouted around southern Africa to avoid the Suez canal, in a sign of the disruption to global trade caused by Houthi rebels attacking vessels on the western coast of Yemen.
The shipping company Kuehne and Nagel said it had identified 103 ships that had already changed course, with more expected to go around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
The diversion adds about 6,000 nautical miles to a typical journey from Asia to Europe, potentially adding three or four weeks to product delivery times.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
More than 100 container ships have been rerouted around southern Africa to avoid the Suez canal, in a sign of the disruption to global trade caused by Houthi rebels attacking vessels on the western coast of Yemen.
About 19,000 ships navigate the Suez canal every year, making it one of the world’s key routes, particularly for fossil fuels and goods moving between Asia and Europe.
Michael Aldwell, Kuehne and Nagel’s board member for sea logistics, said: “The extended time spent on the water is anticipated to absorb 20% of the global fleet capacity, leading to potential delays in the availability of shipping resources.
The latest disruption will not affect the retail industry this Christmas, because stocks are built up weeks or even months in advance, meaning products are already in stores or in UK warehouses.
An extended disruption to normal shipping patterns could eventually cause shortages of products for consumers or parts for manufacturers, although few have reported any effects so far.
Some manufacturers had already switched from “just-in-time” supply chains that relied on goods arriving promptly, to a less efficient – but more resilient – “just-in-case” model with more emergency stockpiles of parts.
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