Maritime events impact shipping. An 18-month long threat to shipping by Houthi rebels along Red Sea-Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal has diverted shipping to the longer route around South Africa’s Cape route. This article explores topics of piracy at sea and the already high cost of maritime shipping of containers and bulk cargo.
Pirates Impact on Shipping
Maritime shipping remains on alert at the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden entrance enroute to the Suez Canal as a result of Israel and Gaza conflict. Israeli, US and UK ships were attacked by Yemen pirates, or Houthis that required military intervention by US and UK. More than 100 attacks occurred from November 2023 to August 2024 with eleven ships severely impacted, four sailors killed, and two bulk tankers sunk by anti-ship missiles on March 2 and June 12, 2024, the Rubymar and Tutor. A January 2025 ceasefire in Gaza has reduced seafarers’ tension may be cause for shipping to return to normal and freight rates to fall for Red Sea-Suez shipping route. The Houthi campaign began with seizure of the Galaxy Leader in November 2023 with its crew taken hostage. Shipping, insurance and retail observers say the risk along the Red Sea route remains too high to resume normal operations. The insurance risk raises cost only 2% unlike the overall perception of and risk to life.
Traffic along the Suez route along Yemen’s coastline remains subdued, indicated by the green and red triangle symbols (Image 1), compared to the traffic concentrated along the 2,200 nautical mile-longer route traversing South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. The longer route adds 10 days at a cost of $654,000 for charter plus fuel for larger ships or about 16% more costly than 2023. Marine traffic.com tracks 267,000 ships worldwide.
The Transportation section, published by CostMine addresses cost information and topics of interest to mining is published annually (InfoMine USA Inc. in the United States). The Transportation section consists of 5 parts, Main, Trucking, Rail, Intermodal and Ocean with each addressed singly. More information is available at: https://www.costmine.com/
Discussed here are: (1) “Ocean Transportation of Mineral Products,” Main section TR Transportation 2024 (p. 14-21) and (2) “Ocean Transportation, Appendix D”, (p. 1-32)
Beyond the dangers of piracy, the true cost of maritime shipping extends far beyond freight rates alone. The next section of this series will dive into the often-overlooked in-port expenses—dockage, wharfage, storage, and stevedoring—and how these hidden costs shape global shipping economics.
