The seizure of a container ship by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz this morning, Saturday, is 'extremely concerning' and threatens to put trade lanes in the Middle East at risk, according to Peter Sand, the Chief Analyst at Xeneta, a leading ocean and air freight rate benchmarking and market analytics platform.

 

His comments come following a recent report that the MSC Aries was seized by Iran Revolutionary Guards 92 km northeast of Fujairah, an area close to the Strait of Hormuz, that forms the entrance to the Arabian Gulf.

 

The latest incident follows ongoing conflict in the Red Sea region - the gateway to the Suez Canal - which has seen ocean freight container ships avoiding the area due to missile attacks by Houthi militia.

 

Xeneta’s powerful reporting and analytics platform, he stated, provides liner-shipping stakeholders the data they need to understand current and historical market behaviour - reporting live on market average and low/high movements for both short and long-term contracts.

 

"An already bad situation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has just got worse and could put ocean freight container imports and oil exports in the Middle East at risk," remarked the expert at Xeneta.

 

"We don't yet know the full details of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz, but any widening of the conflict which has already resulted in huge disruption to ocean freight services in the Red Sea region would be extremely concerning," he stated.

 

"For example, Dubai is a regional hub for imports as well as sea-air corridors, with containers arriving by ocean via the Strait of Hormuz for onward travel by air to Europe and North America. If ships are impacted from sailing into the Arabian Gulf then the disruption would be considerable," he added.

 

A privately-held company with headquarters in Oslo, Norway, Xeneta has regional offices in New Jersey, US and Hamburg. Its data is comprised of over 450+ million contracted container and air freight rates and covers over 160,000 global ocean trade routes and over 58,000 airport-airport connections.-TradeArabia News Service