The Red Sea crisis — and the Middle East situation in general — is worsening. There’s growing conviction that shipping diversions around the Cape of Good Hope will increase in scope and last much longer than initially expected. That should be good news for shipping stocks over time, due to durably longer voyage distances.
The Houthis hit the JP Morgan-owned product tanker Marlin Luanda with a ballistic missile on Friday, setting a cargo tank on fire. The tanker was chartered by trading house Trafigura and loaded with Russian naphtha. The fire was extinguished on Saturday, with all crew safe.
On Sunday, a drone attack by an Iranian-backed militia killed three U.S. service members and injured at least 40 more at a U.S. military site in Jordan. The Biden administration has vowed to respond, raising the specter of a wider Middle East conflict.
“Red Sea diversions are on the rise as continued attacks on vessels in the region are prompting more shipping companies to avoid transiting the area,” said Jefferies shipping analyst Omar Nokta in a client note on Monday.
The vast majority of larger container ships already avoid the Red Sea, and detours are rapidly spreading to bulk commodity shipping.
Citing data from Clarksons, Nokta said that crude tanker transits of the region are now down 22% versus their 2023 average; at the beginning of this year, they were down 5% from last year’s average. Product tanker transits are down 51% versus 2023, after being down 29% versus last year’s average at the beginning of the year, with liquefied natural gas carrier transits down 87% (from 36%) and liquefied petroleum gas carrier transits down 62% (from 23%).
