CMA CGM’s plans to lead the way in officially resuming scheduled sailings through the Suez Canal appear to be halted for now, with the 11 388 TEU Aquila officially tracked north of Alexandria on Tuesday morning CAT.
This is after Asian maritime trade tracker Linerlytica reported that the box ship was bound to transit through the Egyptian waterway on June 16.
The scheduled transit on the Marseille line’s Europe Pakistan India Consortium service was widely reported as official confirmation of CMA CGM’s resumption of voyages to Red Sea ports without French naval escorts.
It would have made CMA CGM the first line to officially risk using Suez again after Yemen’s Houthi rebels undertook to cease attacks on sea trade along its coast, provided none of the vessels south of the waterway was serving any Israeli ports.
But the past weekend’s surprise attacks by Israel on targets in Iran and the subsequent retaliatory missile fire between the two countries, have once again added extreme uncertainty to supply line routes in the Middle East.
Prior to the start of bombings on June 13, the Aquila, sailing from Algeciras, was scheduled to call at Jeddah on 19 June, but that date is now in doubt as are the call dates of 19 and 29 June at Abu Dhabi and Jebel Ali respectively.
Provided that CMA CGM can maintain schedule reliability, using Suez to reach Abu Dhabi from Algeciras saves at least 10 days compared with rerouting around Africa.
Linerlytica also reports that volatility on Iran’s southern coast could disrupt 3.4% of global container cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway also carries about 20 million barrels of oil per day, roughly 30% of the global trade in crude.
However, although the CMA CGM Aquila was running behind schedule, Linerlytica reported that, for the time being “container vessel traffic in the Middle East remains unaffected by the escalation in the Israel-Iran conflict since 13 June, with carriers maintaining their scheduled calls at Middle East Gulf and Israeli ports”.
The platform also reported that Suez transits had also been retained, despite the Aquila delay.
Israeli line Zim also “affirmed the continuation of its services to the Israeli ports of Ashdod and Haifa while CMA CGM is still proceeding to reroute three of their Europe-Indian subcontinent/Far East ships through the Suez this month, despite the rising tensions”.
