Hormuz Falls to Two Vessels a Day as Suez Sets a Record and Chattogram Payments Chaos Hits Cargo

Two chokepoints are moving in opposite directions, and the gap between them now defines the risk profile for Asian exports. Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed to a handful of vessels a day, with the International Maritime Organisation counting eighty verified attacks on merchant shipping since late February and at least twenty-two seafarer deaths. In the same week, the Suez Canal Authority reported its strongest month since the Red Sea crisis began, and Bab el-Mandeb kept carrying around twenty-six commodity vessels a day. For anyone shipping from China to Bangladesh, Israel, the Middle East or Africa, the useful question is no longer whether the market is tight. It is which risk will cost money first: the water risk, or the landside execution risk at destination ports where payment systems, terminal software and weather are now deciding whether cargo moves.

Market Snapshot: A Calm Composite and a Violent Split

The headline container index barely moved, but the components underneath it continue to diverge by trade lane rather than by direction of demand.

Drewry has now recorded a seventh consecutive week of divergence between the transpacific and Asia-Europe trades. Pre-Golden Week demand and carrier capacity controls are holding the transpacific up, while weaker demand and the steady return of services through the Suez Canal keep pushing Asia-Europe down. Chinese benchmarks are splitting in the same way: the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index and the China Containerized Freight Index rose, while the Ningbo index and the Freightos Baltic Index fell. When a composite and its components disagree, the route-level number is the one to plan against.

Chokepoint Divergence: Hormuz Nearly Stops, Bab el-Mandeb Keeps Moving

Reuters shipping data showed only two commodity vessels crossing Hormuz on Monday, September 21, down from ten the previous day, against a pre-conflict norm of about 125 large commercial vessels a day. IMF PortWatch recorded a single commercial transit on September 20 against a pre-crisis baseline of roughly 85 a day. Two independent datasets, the same collapse, and both readings describe accumulated commercial paralysis rather than a temporary pause.

The security tally has hardened. The IMO has verified 80 attacks on merchant vessels in and around Hormuz since February 28, with at least 22 seafarer deaths, and Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez has publicly urged member states to stop attacking merchant ships and crews. On September 23, UKMTO reported a cargo vessel struck by a projectile at about 16:32 UTC, with the crew abandoning the ship and two people injured, following an earlier strike in the same corridor that morning.

Supply routes are being rebuilt around the closure rather than through it. Saudi Arabia restarted its East-West pipeline on September 22, nine days after drone damage shut three pumping stations, allowing crude to bypass Hormuz to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The line is pumping at a reduced rate, and restoring full capacity of 7 million barrels a day could take six to eight weeks. Brent broke below 100 USD and was quoted near 98.80 USD on September 23, a fifth consecutive session of decline, which tells you the oil market is pricing workarounds rather than an outright shortage.

The counterpoint matters just as much. Bab el-Mandeb has not stopped: 26 commodity vessels crossed on Monday, in line with recent weeks, even as Houthi forces consolidate positions along the Yemeni coast and near Perim Island. That is why carriers can keep restoring Suez services while war-risk underwriters keep repricing Gulf transits, and why two lanes that look similar on a map now carry completely different cost structures.

Suez Canal Posts a Record August

The Suez Canal Authority reported 1,358 vessels in August 2026, with 68.3 million tons of net tonnage and 567.1 million USD in revenue. In August 2025 the same month produced 1,070 vessels, 45.2 million tons and 326 million USD. That is a rise of 27 percent in vessel numbers, 51.1 percent in net tonnage and 56.7 percent in revenue, presented by authority chairman Osama Rabie during World Maritime Day 2026.

Sea-Intelligence estimates that about 27 percent of Asia-Europe capacity is back on the Red Sea route in September, but the split is highly uneven. Head-haul capacity from Asia to Europe is running at 13 to 25 percent, while return legs from Europe to Asia have climbed from 18 to 26 percent in August to 25 to 47 percent in September. Measured by European origin, Mediterranean to Asia services are at 57 percent through Suez against 27 percent from North Europe.

The network adjustments behind those numbers are visible in schedules:

Downstream, the Georgia Ports Authority reported on September 22 that Indian cargo is now reaching Savannah 10 to 14 days faster, with the Maersk MECL service down to 28 days from Nhava Sheva. The proportion of global container capacity still diverted around the Cape of Good Hope has fallen to 4.6 percent, a two-year low.

Trade Lane Reference Rates

There is no published index for the China to Bangladesh or China to Israel lanes, which is precisely why forwarders should be asked for an all-in number rather than a base rate. What is measurable is the surcharge layer. Zencargo reported on September 22 that FAK rates from Chittagong had stabilised at elevated peak levels with little movement, while CMA CGM has confirmed a 10,000 USD per container peak-season surcharge from October 1 on cargo from or via Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Middle East Gulf and the Red Sea to eastern Canada, the US East Coast and the Gulf.

Chattogram: A Payment U-turn, a Software Rollout and a Cargo Logjam

Bangladesh gave shippers a clean example of how landside process, not ocean capacity, decides delivery. On September 23 the Chattogram Port Authority issued a circular requiring port users to pay charges through a single nominated bank, and withdrew it later the same day after protests from importers, exporters and customs agents. Clearance processes were disrupted from 8am to 2pm while the directive was live, and the previous multi-bank arrangement at the One Stop Service Centre was restored in the afternoon.

The underlying problem is not the bank. It is that a port handling more than 90 percent of national trade is running three changes at once:

Berth productivity does look healthy. Kuehne+Nagel reported for the week of September 16 to 22 a 7-day average vessel waiting time of about 1.05 days, yard utilisation of 65 to 70 percent, and gearless vessels consistently handled within a 48-hour port stay window. Portcast put median waiting at 0.12 days for September 13 to 19. Zencargo, however, warned that yard occupancy is now running well above the recommended threshold of roughly 60 percent, which is what happens when import dwell time, rather than vessel call frequency, becomes the binding constraint.

For shippers to Bangladesh the consequences are concrete: verify which bank the clearing agent can pay through before the vessel arrives, expect documentation rework during the TOS transition, and treat demurrage and detention as a live budget line rather than a contingency.

Durban Weather Hit and the Wider African Picture

South Africa lost momentum for reasons that had nothing to do with rates. BUSA reported that Durban Gateway Terminal waterside throughput fell to 20,110 TEU, a 39 percent week-on-week decline, after two days of extreme weather knocked schedules sideways. Average anchorage time was about 214 hours and berth time about 123 hours, with ten vessels at anchorage and the total Durban vessel queue rising to 33 vessels, including 19 container vessels. Landside conditions stayed materially better than during the late-August crisis, with stack occupancy at 54.5 percent, though evacuation remains inconsistent at 2,225 gate moves and 287 rail moves in a single 24-hour period.

Elsewhere in the system the picture was mixed rather than negative:

DHL continues to rank Durban Pier 2 in its worst category at more than 13 days of terminal waiting time, and Mombasa at 7 to 10 days. The structural context is worth holding onto: more than 11 percent of global containership capacity is still absorbed by congestion, and the global orderbook has passed 45 percent of the existing fleet, about 1,925 vessels and 15.6 million TEU. Neither number helps cargo moving in October.

Air Freight and the Golden Week Cut-off Calendar

Air capacity is tightening into the holidays on fuel cost rather than on demand. The TAC Index rose 0.2 percent week on week and is up 20.2 percent year on year, with Frankfurt up 3.2 percent on the week and 30.2 percent on the year and Chicago up 15.1 percent on the week and 59.2 percent on the year, while London Heathrow eased 9.1 percent on the week. Freightos data for September 8 put China to North America at 6.30 USD per kg, up 5 percent, and China to North Europe at 4.88 USD per kg, up 6 percent. IATA reported July cargo tonne-kilometres up 3.9 percent year on year against capacity growth of 1.7 percent, with jet fuel running 56.9 percent above the prior year.

The calendar is now the constraint, and it is unusually compressed:

Transpacific air cargo was quoted in the 5.20 to 6.80 USD per kg range last week, and the gap between booking before September 26 and shipping after October 8 is the whole decision. On the ocean side, Drewry counted nine transpacific and four Asia-Europe blank sailings for the coming week, and roughly 20 percent of capacity has been withdrawn through blank sailings, so space availability, not headline price, is the binding issue.

What Shippers Should Do

Two chokepoints, one record canal and two congested destinations describe the same market: capacity is being reallocated faster than it is being created, and the cost of risk is now a line item on every quotation. For exporters from China, the discipline that works is unchanged. Book early, verify the destination process, and price the whole journey rather than just the ocean leg.

*Spider Logistics provides ocean and air freight, customs clearance and door-to-door service from China to Bangladesh, Israel, Africa and the Middle East. Contact us for a current all-in quotation on your next shipment.*