Strait of Hormuz Closure Shifts Global Trade to African Routes and Middle East Land Corridors

The Strait of Hormuz remains closed amid a blockade that has persisted for the past two months as of April 30, 2026, reshaping global trade routes and turning Africa into a hub for container ship traffic, Al-Monitor reported. Tensions in the Red Sea have compounded the disruptions, with shipowners turning to alternative land corridors by truck to deliver foodstuffs and manufactured goods to Gulf coastal countries including Sharjah, Bahrain, and Kuwait, which have not been served by sea during this period.

Ships from MSC, CMA CGM, Maersk, and Cosco are arriving at the Saudi port of Jeddah via the Suez Canal, from where cargo departs by truck along a desert highway to destinations such as Sharjah, Bahrain, and Kuwait.

"The port of Jeddah is not sized to handle current import volumes," Arthur Barillas de The, cofounder of Ovrsea, told AFP, as cited by Al-Monitor. A port congestion situation is emerging at Jeddah, with data from Kpler Marine Traffic showing 11 container ships docked there on April 28, 2026, and nine waiting, with an average wait time before unloading of 36 hours, up from 17 hours the previous week.

Shipowners are also using Oman's port of Sohar, UAE's port of Khorfakkan, and UAE's port of Fujairah, which are connected by land from the United Arab Emirates.

The port of Aqaba in Jordan serves as a base for sending goods to Baghdad and Basra in Iraq, while a Turkish corridor allows goods into northern Iraq. The rerouting stems from broader avoidance of the Red Sea, dating back to November 19, 2023, when the first attack on a container ship by Iran-backed Houthi militias from the coast of Yemen occurred, according to CyclOpe, a specialist commodities publication cited by Al-Monitor.

"The rerouting of ships around Africa has become systematic," stated Ronan Boudet, head of container intelligence at Kpler.

Ships now skirt around Africa by following its eastern coast to the Cape of Good Hope in southern South Africa before heading north towards Europe and the Mediterranean. According to Yves Guillo, a supply chain expert at Efeso, 70 percent of the freight traffic that went through the Red Sea in 2023 is being rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope.

Data from the International Monetary Fund's PortWatch platform indicate that commercial vessel traffic via the Cape of Good Hope has more than tripled in three years, while traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait has fallen by more than half.

Between March 1 and April 24, 2026, an average of 20 commercial vessels went round the Cape of Good Hope every day, compared with six in the same period in 2023, per PortWatch data. The average number of transits per day through Bab al-Mandeb fell to five between March and April 2026, from 18 in the same period in 2023.

Transport times between Asia and Europe have lengthened by an average of two weeks, Guillo said.

Costs have risen due to 30 to 50 percent more fuel needed and 10 to 20 percent more ships required to ensure the same frequency of service. The average price to transport a standard 40-foot container on main shipping routes increased by 14 percent in April 2026 compared to April 2025, according to Guillo citing the Drewry freight index. 4 percent, according to the Tanger Med Port Authority.

Egypt lost $7 billion in toll revenues from the Suez Canal in 2024, a drop of more than 60 percent compared with 2023, according to CyclOpe. "With the current situation in the Gulf, we have put several more coins in the machine, it's not going to get better anytime soon," Edouard Louis-Dreyfus, chairman of French shipping giant Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, told AFP, as reported by Al-Monitor.