Red sea crisis and reshaped container services: a positive market trend for Spanish box hubs

Since October 7^th 2023, containership transits through the Suez Canal fell to historically low levels, while the major ocean liners re-routed most of the Far East – Northern Europe/Mediterranean services via the Cape of Good Hope; transit times between Asia and Mediterranean, especially in the Eastern side, have increased to more than 50 days. Thanks to this historic route’ diversion, significant changes in port throughput around the MED have been detected.

Thanks to the positive location, combined with strong container capacity, Spanish ports are facing significant volume increases, especially related to transshipment throughput. As stated by the national authority Puertos del Estado, during the first 4 months of 2024 container volumes increased on a national level by 15% compared to last year. Box in transit volumes in the major transshipment hubs of Barcelona, Valencia and Algericas surged respectively by 54,2%, 16,8% and 5,7%.

Thanks to the growing congestion in the main transshipment terminals, especially since the end of March, even smaller ports are benefiting from the massive vessels re-routing. For instance, from January to April the smaller container hub of Malaga handled more than 37.000 TEUs, while the total throughput of the basin during the whole of 2023 accounted for just 40.000 TEUs.

The next chart shows the positive market trend that is affecting the most important Spanish transshipment hubs.

Source: Puertos del Estado, 2024

Positive trends in the region have also been detected in Tanger-Med, with a historical record throughput of 2,6 million TEUs from January to March (+16,8% compared to 2023), and in the Portuguese hub of Sines (449.973 box throughput during Q1 2024, +28,3% compared to 2023).

On the other hand, as several thinktanks predicted, significant declines have occurred in some of the major transshipment hubs located in the East Med, such as Piraeus (-11% TEUs Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023) and Trieste (-17% TEUs Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023). Lower transit competitiveness is also negatively affecting all the Adriatic ports. Gioia Tauro, the most important Italian transshipment port, is the only one with single-digit growth in the area.

Location will represent the most important driver for box growth even for the next months. The Iberian Peninsula lies perfectly in the North-South route, allowing ocean liners to connect Spanish / Moroccan / Portuguese ports with the most important Far East/Northern Range services with a very few hours of navigation difference. Eastern Med transshipment hubs, on the other hand, will probably suffer significant negative trends until geopolitical tensions are solved in the Middle East.

It is difficult to predict how long this market trend will last especially regarding the Spanish Mediterranean ports, since the growing congestion that is affecting both Barcelona and Valencia is pushing ocean carriers to think about extra calls in more eastern ports; the smaller APM/Cosco owned container terminal of Vado Ligure (North-West Italy), reported more than 10.000 transshipped TEUs, compared to a modest 2 thousand units of just one month before.

#RedSea #ContainerMarket #Container #Spain

Read more about the monthly Puertos del Estado report here: https://www.puertos.es/es-es/estadisticas/paginas/estadistica_mensual.aspx