Global trade conditions

Since late 2023, attacks on ships in the Red Sea have pushed most Asia-to-Europe traffic away from the Suez shortcut and around southern Africa instead. The detour adds roughly 10 to 14 days and burns about a third more fuel, on the order of $200 to $400 extra per container. Carriers have been testing the route again as conditions shift, so the traffic count moves week to week. The ships missing here have not vanished: they show up on the Cape of Good Hope card beside this one. The number above is actual ships per day through the canal, against 2023, the last year before the attacks.

This is where the ships avoiding Suez actually go: down and around the southern tip of Africa. The detour adds roughly 3,000 nautical miles and 10 to 14 days against the canal route, burns about a third more fuel, and ties each vessel up longer, so the same fleet completes fewer round trips and effective capacity shrinks worldwide. Carriers accept that because war-risk insurance and crew danger in the Red Sea can outweigh the fuel bill. South Africa's ports have been busy bunkering and resupplying the traffic. When Suez recovers, this number falls back toward its old normal, so read this card and the Suez card as two halves of one story.

The Panama Canal links the Pacific and Atlantic and runs on fresh water from lakes that rain has to refill. When water runs short, the canal's levers are how deep ships may sit and how many may pass: in the 2023 drought it cut daily transits to the low twenties and capped depth, which backed up cargo for months. Fewer feet of depth means less cargo per ship, not fewer ships. The number above is ships through per day, averaged over the past week.

The Malacca Strait is the narrow water between Malaysia and Indonesia that connects the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. Almost everything moving between the Middle East or Europe and East Asia goes through it, including most of the crude that fuels China, Japan and Korea. It is shallow, crowded and in places under three kilometres wide, with no practical detour: going around Indonesia adds days. Traffic here is a steady heartbeat, so a real dip means something worth knowing.

Hormuz is the mouth of the Gulf: the only sea route out for Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and Bahrain, and for the Gulf-coast ports of Saudi Arabia and most of the UAE. Around a fifth of the world's oil and a large share of its LNG passes through a channel a few kilometres wide. Pipelines to Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast and to Fujairah carry part of the crude around it; LNG, and most of the region's fuels and chemicals, have no such route. That is why tension here moves energy prices worldwide within hours, and why it matters for chemicals: the Gulf is a major producer of ammonia, urea, methanol and polymers. Two measures are used here. The ship count comes from public satellite tracking, which sees only ships that broadcast their position, and is set against the 2023-25 average of about 90 a day. The crude figure, when shown, comes from Kpler, which also follows tankers sailing with their tracking off, and is checked by hand each week. Some Gulf cargo lands instead at ports on the open sea, such as Fujairah, Khor Fakkan, Sohar and Salalah, and finishes the journey by road, but those ports can take only part of what normally passes through the strait.

With container lines keeping out of Hormuz, the Gulf's cargo has not stopped moving so much as changed shape. Ships now discharge at ports on the open-sea side of the strait — Fujairah and Khor Fakkan on the UAE's east coast, Sohar, Salalah and Duqm in Oman — and the boxes finish the journey by truck, over the Hajar mountains into Dubai and Abu Dhabi, or across the peninsula to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk and MSC all run these land bridges; DP World bought 700 trucks in July to feed the Fujairah leg. For a buyer this is the practical picture: Gulf material is still reachable, but it arrives later and costs more, because a road leg has been added to a sea route. The number above counts cargo ships calling at those five ports against the same weeks this time last year.

Antwerp is Europe's front door and the continent's chemical cluster in one: refineries, crackers and tank farms sit alongside the berths, so a large share of Europe-made chemicals leaves through it. Hamburg and Amsterdam round out the northern range. Their outflow is a fair read on whether European plants are running and clearing product. Strikes, low water on the Rhine and energy costs all show up here first. Rotterdam is deliberately absent: PortWatch lists the port but has never published a single day of figures for it, and a card should not name a source it cannot actually read. The number is estimated tonnage leaving the three ports, from satellite ship tracking, against the same four weeks this time last year.

The US Gulf coast is the export engine of the Americas: Houston for petrochemicals and plastics, New Orleans for grain and fertilizer moving down the Mississippi. Cheap American gas is what makes this material competitive abroad, so this flow is the physical side of the US energy advantage. Hurricane season is its own recurring risk, and a big storm can shut the whole coast for days. The number is estimated tonnage leaving both ports against the same four weeks this time last year.

Brazil's ports are the farm side of world trade: soy, sugar, coffee and orange juice leave here in volume, and the same berths handle the chemicals that serve that agriculture. Outflow peaks with the harvest, roughly February to July, when queues of ships wait days for a berth and inland trucking gets tight. What leaves is bulk and what returns is often fertilizer, which is why this coast reads as a mirror of the import card in the section below.

Africa exports raw material and imports finished goods, and these three ports are where both directions concentrate: Durban for South Africa's minerals and industry, Lagos for Nigerian oil and the west's trade, Alexandria for Egypt's fertilizer and Mediterranean traffic. Egypt in particular is a serious urea exporter, so a slowdown here is felt by fertilizer buyers worldwide. Volumes are smaller than the Asian hubs, so weekly swings look larger.

Shanghai and Ningbo, an hour apart on China's east coast, are the two busiest ports on earth, and a large share of the world's chemicals and chemical raw materials starts its journey there. When the outflow slows it usually means holidays (the big dip every Chinese New Year is normal), typhoons, or policy getting in the way, and buyers feel it a few weeks later as delayed shipments and tighter allocations. The number is estimated tonnage leaving both ports against the same four weeks this time last year.

India's west-coast ports handle the country's chemical and agricultural trade in both directions: India is a major exporter of generic chemicals and dyes, and simultaneously one of the world's biggest fertilizer importers. Mundra and Kandla sit closest to the industrial belt of Gujarat, so their flow tracks both sides. This is a smaller tonnage than the Chinese or US hubs, so its percentages swing more from week to week. The number is estimated tonnage leaving both ports against the same four weeks this time last year.

The Middle East's exports are mostly energy and what is made from it: crude oil and refined fuels, LNG, and the ammonia, urea, methanol and polymers made from the region's gas. In a normal year most of it leaves from ports inside the Gulf — Saudi Arabia's east coast, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, most of the UAE and Iran's main terminals. The ports on the open sea are Oman's Sohar, Salalah and Duqm, Fujairah and Khor Fakkan on the UAE's east coast, Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast, Aqaba in Jordan, Yemen's ports and Chabahar in Iran; when the Gulf is cut off, they are the only way out by sea. The figures are estimated tonnage from satellite ship tracking at about fifty ports across the Gulf states, Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Yemen, against the same four weeks last year.

What Europe cannot make at current energy prices, it imports, and most of it lands on this northern stretch of coast: Antwerp, Hamburg and Amsterdam. A container from East Asia currently takes around five weeks going the long way around Africa; the Suez shortcut, when carriers trust it, saves about ten days. Freight into Europe runs dearest in the autumn run-up to Christmas stocking and softest after Chinese New Year, and when arrivals surge, empty boxes pile up in Europe and get cheap to reship out. The number is estimated tonnage arriving at the three ports against the same four weeks this time last year.

Los Angeles and Long Beach are one giant gateway for Asian cargo into North America, and Houston adds the chemical side. The Pacific crossing takes roughly two to three weeks, against a month or more to the east coast through Panama, which is why the west coast feels changes in Asian supply first. Peak season runs August to October, when boxes get scarce and surcharges appear; the quietest, cheapest window follows Chinese New Year. The number is estimated tonnage arriving against the same four weeks this time last year.

Santos and Paranaguá are Brazil's front door, and Paranaguá in particular is where the fertilizer lands: Brazil imports most of what its farms use, and those cargoes peak through the middle of the year ahead of southern planting, exactly as the fertilizer tracker below describes. A ship from Asia takes four to five weeks, from Europe two to three. Containers can run short around harvest, when everything leaves full and comes back slowly. The number is estimated tonnage arriving at both ports against the same four weeks this time last year.

Durban, Lagos and Alexandria are gateways to three different Africas: the industrial south, the west's consumer giant, and the Mediterranean north. Much of the continent's cargo arrives via transshipment hubs, which adds days or weeks to headline transit times, and empty containers are chronically scarce inland, so availability bites harder here than on the main lanes. Rates firm toward year-end when consumer stock arrives. The number is estimated tonnage arriving at the three ports against the same four weeks this time last year.

China is the world's biggest importer of raw material: crude oil, gas, iron ore, potash and phosphate all land here in volume, and they are what its chemical industry runs on. Shanghai and Ningbo handle the containerised half of that. Arrivals dip hard around Chinese New Year every year, when the country stops for a fortnight and factories restart slowly, and that lull is also when freight is cheapest. A sustained drop in arrivals means Chinese plants are running thinner, and export offers firm a few weeks later.

India is the world's largest fertilizer importer, and Mundra and Kandla in Gujarat are where much of it lands, alongside the crude and intermediates its chemical industry runs on. Buying is tightly seasonal: cargoes arrive ahead of the two sowing seasons, before the summer monsoon around June and the winter crop around October, and government tenders can swing world urea prices when they land. Gulf suppliers are normally only a few days' sail away, but cargo from ports inside the Strait of Hormuz depends on the strait being open; from Europe it is two to three weeks.

The region imports much of its food, along with machinery, vehicles and consumer goods, most of it in containers. Jebel Ali has long been the hub: cargo lands there and fans out across the Gulf by feeder ship and truck, while grain and other bulk land at each country's own ports. The ports on the open sea are Oman's Sohar, Salalah and Duqm, Fujairah and Khor Fakkan on the UAE's east coast, Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast, Aqaba in Jordan, Yemen's ports and Chabahar in Iran; when the Gulf is cut off, they are the only way in by sea. The figures are estimated tonnage from satellite ship tracking at about fifty ports across the Gulf states, Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Yemen, against the same four weeks last year.