The total boxship capacity on the Suez route is currently 8.25 million TEUs, or 29.3% of the global fleet, according to Linerlytica in its latest report.
A total of 664 containerships operate on Suez routes: 234 on the Asia-Northern Europe one (43% of total capacity), 159 on the Asia-Mediterranean link (23%); 84 vessels sail between Europe and the US East Coast (12%); 123 are deployed between Europe, the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent (11%) while 48 and 16 ships, representing 4% and 2% of the total capacity deployed, operate between the US and the Middle East/India and between Europe and Oceania respectively.
Linerlytica estimates that if all these ships (i.e. 9% of the global fleet) were forced to reroute from Suez to the Cape of Good Hope, the overall round-trip transit time would be about 30% longer, which would increase the global TEU-mile demand by at least 2.5 million TEUs.
The impact is likely to be even greater if vessel speed is not increased to minimize sailing schedule delays.
Translation by Giles Foster