Dow Jones conveys a report in Shippingwatch (may be gated) that some shipping lines have made agreements with the Houthis to prevent their ships from being attacked in the Red Sea.
- Carriers said it was too dangerous to travel through the Red Sea and the Suez canal
- The Houthi have been targeting shipping with drones, missiles, helicopters and boats in the region
- Shippingwatch said carriers were entering agreements with the Houthi to avoid attacks, a development that may ease tensions, encourage shipping groups to resume Red Sea transit and thus reduce the recent premium in shipping rates.
- Shippingwatch clarified that "it is not the largest container carriers who have entered agreements with the Houthis to avoid attack", and both Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk denied any pact had been reached, according to Bloomberg.
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The latest reports say that the number of ships transiting the Suez Canal over the past weekend fell to the lowest since it was blocked by the Ever Given container ship in 2021.
A concern is that the longer journeys - with ships having to sail around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope - and higher shipping rates once again trigger supply-disruption inflation like that seen during the COVID pandemic. Which seems to me to be a misplaced fear. Sure, higher shipping costs and charges will push prices up at the margin, but the covid disruptions were not about shipping. (to a large extent).
This guy fixed it last time. I think western military response might be the fix this time though.