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Perhaps the most extraordinary part of Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel was that it was countered by a coalition that included Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is also noteworthy that this was the first time that the United States engaged militarily in Israel’s defense.

The events of April did not begin with the October 6, 2023 strike on Israel from Gaza but have their origins decades earlier. It is now evident, however, that the catalyst for Hamas’ attack was the impending normalization of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

This would have had significant consequences for Israel’s oil supply, an important aspect of the present crisis that is rarely discussed by the press or politicians. Almost everything is about oil in the Middle East.

The Saudis were ready to join the Abraham Accords that in 2020 established ties between the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and Israel on regional security and trade.

As a direct consequence, Israel was officially moved under the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility in early 2021, shifting from its decades-long alignment with the U.S. European Command (EUCOM).

The timing of the Gaza incursion into Israel in October was designed to prevent Saudi Arabia from joining the Abraham Accords.

It is hardly a coincidence that Houthi attacks on shipping in the Suez Canal and the Red Sea started in November. Almost 9 million barrels of oil per day (mmb/d) pass through the Canal and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

It’s worth recalling that the Houthis have been in an armed conflict with Saudi Arabia in Yemen since 2015, and were responsible for attacking the main Saudi refinery complex in 2019. Both Hamas and the Houthis, along with Hezbollah in Lebanon, are funded and largely directed by Iran.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Shipping Industry Pleads With UN For “Enhanced Military Presence” As Maritime Choke-Point Chaos Spreads

April 20, 2024

Shipping Industry Pleads With UN For “Enhanced Military Presence” As Maritime Choke-Point Chaos Spreads

Exactly one week ago, Iranian commandos seized a container ship affiliated with Israel as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz. This action sparked new fears of another maritime chokepoint becoming disrupted as the crisis in the Middle East escalated. It also prompted a plea by the international shipping industry to the United Nations, urging an increase in military patrols along key shipping routes.

First reported by the maritime news website gGaptain, an open letter co-signed by 16 maritime industry associations and social partners, calls for urgent assistance and reminds countries about their responsibilities under international law.

“However, the incident this weekend, when the vessel MSC Aries was seized by Iranian forces at 06.37 UTC – 50 nautical miles north-east of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates on Saturday 13 April, has once again highlighted the intolerable situation where shipping has become a target. This is unacceptable,” the signatories of the letter stated.

“Given the continually evolving and severe threat profile within the area, we call on you for enhanced coordinated military presence, missions and patrols in the region, to protect our seafarers against any further possible aggression,” they said, adding, “The industry associations ask that all member states be formally reminded of their responsibilities under international law. And we ask that all efforts possible are brought to bear to release the seafarers and protect the safe transit of ships.”

After the MSC Aries seizure in the Strait of Hormuz, we published a note titled “Heading For Supply Shock? Four Maritime Chokepoints Flash Red As Escalating Conflict Looms,” outlining the maritime chokepoints, including the Suez Canal, Bab-El Mandeb Strait, and Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of all global trade flows, that are experiencing increased conflict.

In a recent note, MUFG provided a global snapshot of the world’s maritime chokepoints.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

No One Has Really Grokked How Big The Suez/Houthi Gambit Is

December 23, 2023

No One Has Really Grokked How Big The Suez/Houthi Gambit Is

We’ve had a lot of foreshadowing of the Suez Canal being a major hotspot for conflict over the past couple of years. Think back to the Evergreen beaching itself in the canal in 2021. Everyone is just now waking up to the idea that global shipping is at risk here.

This Twitter thread (by a self-professed moron who, IMO, seems to have a good grasp on things) is representative of the level of analysis being put forth by people still in love with the US Navy’s ability to force project around the world. He’s just waking up to the importance of this situation but he hasn’t picked up on the nuance of it from the other side of the battlefield.

In order to set the stage properly I’m going to have to go back in time. So, let’s start with October 7th and the attack on Israel by Hamas. In the October issue of the Gold Goats ‘n Guns Newsletter I laid out why I thought everyone had an incentive to allow and/or instigate that event.

The October Setup

So, here’s the backdrop for Davos and the US/UK:

Now, if you are a cornered old money globalist oligarch with your finger on the pulse of these events…

Then, you are seeing:

The project in Ukraine hanging by a thread as European and American support wanes at every level just below the unelected leadership.

The ECB failing to hold the line on rising bond yields to stave off a banking crisis.

US Yield Curve blowing out on the long end, giving Yellen no good options for funding the current budget deficit or for rolling over existing debt, much of which is due in 2024.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Houthi Rebels Hit Norwegian-Flagged Tanker With Anti-Ship Cruise Missile At Key Maritime Chokepoint

December 12, 2023

Houthi Rebels Hit Norwegian-Flagged Tanker With Anti-Ship Cruise Missile At Key Maritime Chokepoint

An anti-ship cruise missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck a Norwegian-flagged tanker in the Red Sea near a key maritime chokepoint known as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where nearly 10% of all crude traded at sea passes through.

Reuters quoted Houthi military spokesperson Yehia Sarea, who said the tanker – named “Strinda” – was targeted because it was headed to an Israeli terminal, and the crew ignored all warnings.

However, Strinda’s owner, Norway’s Mowinckel Chemical Tankers, said the vessel was bound for the Suez Canal and then on to Italy with a cargo containing vegetable oil and biofuels.

A US official told Reuters that the attack occurred about 60 nautical miles north of Bab al-Mandab Strait, connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden around 2100 GMT. After the attack, another official said the tanker could move under its own power.

According to the US military’s Central Command, which supervises US forces in the Middle East, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Mason received a distress call from Strinda and was able to respond:

“There were no US ships in the vicinity at the time of the attack, but the (US Navy destroyer) USS MASON responded to the M/T STRINDA’s mayday call and is currently rendering assistance.”

The Iran-backed militant group has carried out a series of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea (read: here & here). They are specifically targeting any vessel they believe is going to or coming from Israel.

Bloomberg cited sources who said the US and Gulf allies have been discussing potential military action against the militant group for the latest spate of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

As for energy markets, Brent crude futures briefly traded above $76 a barrel after Central Command posted on X about the incident on Monday night. Yet Brent gave up all gains and slid back to the $75 handle early Tuesday. Global crude markets are gripped with oversupply fears.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Rabobank: As With Evergiven, Evergrande Is Just The Symtpom Of Far Larger Problems

September 21, 2021

Rabobank: As With Evergiven, Evergrande Is Just The Symtpom Of Far Larger Problems

It’s Ever Something

On 23 March, the giant cargo vessel Evergiven got stuck in the Suez Canal and blocked it for six days. Obviously, this dominated global headlines. Even Joe Shmoe could see global supply chains were not operating efficiently because of their gigantism. Six days, six months ago: yet today bullwhip supply-chain problems are still passing through the global system in escalating waves. Evergiven was just a symbol for those who had not been paying any attention to the underlying ‘too big to sail’ problems it represented. These were decades in the making, and will be years in the solving; will involve lots of money; and because they will also involve a different way of doing things, we haven’t even started yet in most places.

Evergrande, a giant Chinese property developer, has also run aground. Suddenly everyone in markets knows who it is, and is worrying about it. It is huge, and its debts are equally huge: $300bn, perhaps more. The whisper is that this could be China’s “Lehman moment”. Even with Chinese markets closed until Wednesday, we are seeing knock-on sell-offs around the world. Naturally, the upside specialists are also out there: Bloomberg today suggests market panic makes a bailout more likely: I think that dynamic only works on the US fiscal policy front.

Indeed, within China there is a spectrum of possible government approaches to the crisis. At one extreme, ‘the Austrian’, where the pieces fall where they may. I don’t think any economy anywhere would allow that to happen. At the other extreme, ‘socialism for the rich’, where everyone gets to carry on as if nothing happened, which is what we have seen in OECD since 2008…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Where’s Dirk Gently When You Need Him?

April 5, 2021

Where’s Dirk Gently When You Need Him?

Did you hear? A supersized cargo ship got wedged in the Suez Canal on March 23rd? If you didn’t, you must do pretty well at avoiding the news, social media, and late night TV. But the short of it is: the Ever Given somehow lost control (sandstorm strength winds have been blamed, as have human errors) and crashed into the bank of the canal and lodged itself in.

So what? Is this really news? Or just a sensational story to distract us from the pandemic, which, one might argue, is itself a distraction from the rapid unraveling of Earth’s systems and thus human civilization? Perhaps. But then again perhaps not.

Here’s why this incident is worth understanding:

First, a ship single-bowedly disrupted global trade for six days. It was finally freed on March 29th. However, there is now a backlog of over 300 ships while many ships rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope. The Suez Canal is part of a trade route that carries more than 10 percent of global trade, including 7 percent of the world’s oil. Each day 30 percent of the world’s shipping container freight moves through the canal. Thus it created backlogs in shipping (including some 200,000 live animals who could have overheated or run out of food). It raised the price of oil briefly. It created shortages in factories—not just of parts but of shipping containers. And of course, it felt like a freak occurrence. Last year, of the 18,840 ships that moved through the canal, there were no incidents.

But the main reason is because this is an excellent metaphor on how fragile our entire globalized system has become.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Erik Assadourian, suez canal, supply chains, trade, shortages, globalisation, gaianism, shipping

Suez Highlights the Fragility of Globalization

April 4, 2021

Suez Highlights the Fragility of Globalization

Photo: Suez Canal Authority.

The global supply chain is an elaborately choreographed ballet, nowhere more than in the flow of containers through which 60% of the world’s seaborne trade travels. Calibrating a stream of over 800 million boxes each year entails sophisticated tracking that makes sure containers reach their destination. The system reaches down to the crane operator who stacks each box in a specified position on the ship, and ensures enough empty boxes are on site to load the next shipment.

Last week the ballet turned into a mosh pit, when a character named MV Ever Given stepped out of its choreographed role to disrupt the entire dance. It blocked the world’s most critical trade chokepoint, the Suez Canal, an artery carrying 30% of the world’s container traffic. Effects radiated across the planet. Oil prices ticked upwards. Ships were held up at major ports from Rotterdam to Newark. Store and e-commerce deliveries were delayed. Both Amazon and Ikea had shipments on the Ever Given itself.

In our just-in-time world, where ships act as precisely scheduled floating warehouses, a week’s interruption creates a backlog that lasts a lot longer. It may only take days to relieve the maritime traffic jam and restore normal canal operations. But leading container shippers predict it could take weeks or even months to sort it all out, as off-schedule ships pile into congested ports. The shipping industry was already struggling with impacts of the pandemic on operations and the way it has shifted consumer purchases from restaurants and entertainment to consumer goods. Containers were short in Asia where much shipping emerges, and costs were way up. Then the canal blockage piled on. It is “going to result in one of the biggest disruptions to global trade in recent years,” reported MSC, the world’s second leading container shipper.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

PATRICK MAZZA, counterpunch, supply chains, globalisation, suez canal,

Blocked Suez Canal Adding to Container Shortages, Supply Chain Snarls, Component Shortages for Manufacturers

March 27, 2021

Blocked Suez Canal Adding to Container Shortages, Supply Chain Snarls, Component Shortages for Manufacturers

Exactly at the worst possible time. Ripple effects to be felt for months.

Today is Thursday, and the Suez Canal is still blocked by one of the largest container carriers in the world. The last thing the tangled up and strained supply chains needed amid a historic surge in demand for durable goods, and component shortages that have led to numerous shutdowns of assembly plants, was a traffic jam at both ends of one of the world’s most important shipping choke points. But that’s what manufacturers were served up when the Ever Given got stuck in a narrow part of the Suez Canal where about 30% of the world’s ocean container volume transits. Image by Airbus Space, this morning:

The Ever Given in all its beauty. Owned by Japan’s Shoei Kisen, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, and registered in Panama, it has a capacity of 20,000 TEU or Twenty-foot Equivalent Units.

On Tuesday at around 7:45 a.m. local time (Monday night in the US), the Ever Given got stuck in high winds, sailing northbound through the Suez Canal on its way from China to Rotterdam. And it is still stuck, despite all-out efforts to refloat the ship, blocking traffic in both directions. The estimates as when it could be moved out of the way range all over the place, from days to weeks, and might have to include partially unloading the ship.

About 19,300 vessels passed through the Suez Canal in the fiscal year 2020, or roughly 52 per day, according to the Suez Canal Authority. And they’re now piling up at both ends of the canal, and are stuck in the Great Bitter Lake in the middle.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Suez Canal Crisis Morphs Into Global Supply Chain Wrecking Ball

March 26, 2021

Suez Canal Crisis Morphs Into Global Supply Chain Wrecking Ball

The world got another wake-up call this week about the overreliance on complex global supply chains. As of Friday, the massive containership, “Ever Given,” remains stuck in the canal, unable to be refloated, paralyzing the world’s most important shipping lane.

Ever Given is one of the world’s largest containerships, with approximately 20,000 shipping containers of goods. The shipping lane is a vital linkage between Asian factories and customers in Europe and the US.

Reuters reports the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) is looking forward to cooperating with the US to refloat the stranded containership that has blocked the canal since Tuesday.

“The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) values the offer of the United States of America to contribute to these efforts, and looks forward to cooperating with the US in this regard,” it said in a statement.

Shoei Kisen, the Japanese owner of the ship blocking the Suez Canal, aims to dislodge the vessel from the canal bank by Saturday. But as Bloomberg reports, the process to refloat the ship could “take until at least next Wednesday.”

Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis who has been tasked with dislodging the vessel, warned Ever Given “could be stuck in the canal for weeks.”

So actual timelines on when the vessel will be unstuck are unclear. The blockage is wreaking havoc across global supply chains, and crude prices were higher on Friday morning on mounting fears the containership will be stuck for much longer than initially anticipated. Since the containership got stuck on Tuesday, crude prices have been chopping around 57-handle to 61-handle.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

suez canal, shipping, supply chains, zerohedge,

Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln Passes Through Suez Canal On Route To Iran As Tensions Soar

May 9, 2019

Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln Passes Through Suez Canal On Route To Iran As Tensions Soar

Tehran tried to call Washington’s bluff on Wednesday when it threatened to start stockpiling enriched uranium and heavy water again – which would constitute a violation of the JCPOA’s terms – unless the treaty’s signatories abide by their commitments to buy oil and offer other financial relief, something that American sanctions have rendered impossible.

But in what appears to be an attempt to show Tehran that it’s not bluffing, Washington has committed to another threatening display of force. Reuters reports that the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been dispatched to the Mediterranean last week amid worsening tensions with Iran, has passed through the Suez Canal, the first stop in what appears to be a journey into Iranian waters.

U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIER ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SENT AS WARNING TO IRAN, PASSES THROUGH EGYPT’S SUEZ CANAL – CANAL AUTHORITY

The report cited the Canal Authority as its main source.

Last night, Trump issued a statement affirming that the relationship with Iran is “broken beyond repair” and placed new sanctions on Iran’s industrial metals sector.

Meanwhile, the Iranians have dismissed Washington’s dispatching of the aircraft carrier and several B-52 bombers to the region.

The Iranians have warned that they would retaliate if US forces get too close – possibly by blocking off the critical Strait of Hormuz (vital to the global oil trade) or responding with violence. If the aircraft carrier is indeed heading for the Persian Gulf, the situation could swiftly spiral out of control.

Russia, India And Iran To Cooperate On New Trade Route Alternative To Suez Canal

November 2, 2018

Russia, India And Iran To Cooperate On New Trade Route Alternative To Suez Canal

After their leaders pledged to strengthen bilateral trade and military cooperation at a bilateral summit last month, Russia and India announced earlier this week that they had sealed a long-discussed $6 billion arms deal despite threats of economic sanctions from Washington. And in the latest indication of the increasingly close relationship between the two countries, Iran, Russia and Iran announced on Thursday that they would meet next month to work out the details of a massive project to open up a new sea-land transport corridor that would that would be a cheaper and shorter alternative to shipping oil and other goods through the Suez Canal.

According to RT, the North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), the name for the new transit route, will connect India to Russia and Europe via a combination of sea routes and an overland passage through Iran, according to Iranian state-owned news outlet Press TV. The 7,200-kilometers long corridor will reduce the time and costs of shipping by up to 40%. Transport time between Mumbai and Moscow will fall to 20 days. The annual capacity of the transport artery is expected to reach 30 million tons.

Indian logistics companies presently need to route shipments through China, Europe or Iran to access Central Asian markets. Already, routing shipments through Iran is the least time-consuming option. But the INSTC will have the ancillary benefit of allowing Indian companies to forge a new trade route to Afghanistan without having to travel through Pakistan, as tensions over Kashmir are once again on the rise. The passage corridor through the Persian Gulf will mean billions of dollars in trade for Afghanistan, cutting its dependence on foreign logistics.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Top General Issues Urgent Warning Over US-China Collision Course in Africa

March 9, 2018

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) Djibouti — China is the rising world power. This much is clear, but nowhere is that reality felt more than behind closed doors in Washington, D.C. The global hegemony of the United States is being challenged, and the contest is perfectly encapsulated in what’s happening now in the small African nation of Djibouti.

Strategically located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea on the route to the Suez Canal, Djibouti is home to both U.S. and Chinese military bases, and the two are only miles apart. The U.S. base houses around 4,000 military personnel and is used as a launching pad for operations in Yemen and Somalia.

On Tuesday, Reuters highlighted how the situation at a key port in Djibouti has U.S. officials worrying over China’s growing reach:

“Last month, Djibouti ended its contract with Dubai’s DP World, one of the world’s biggest port operators, to run the Doraleh Container Terminal, citing failure to resolve a dispute that began in 2012.

“DP World called the move an illegal seizure of the terminal and said it had begun new arbitration proceedings before the London Court of International Arbitration.”

It also described the reaction in Washington at a session of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee:

“During a U.S. congressional hearing on Tuesday, which was dominated by concerns about China’s role in Africa, lawmakers said they had seen reports that Djibouti seized control of the port to give it to China as a gift.”

Speaking before lawmakers, Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the top U.S. commander in Africa, warned that the military’s ability to resupply and refuel ships would be greatly affected if China restricted access to the port:

“If the Chinese took over that port, then the consequences could be significant.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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