Seafreight:
Over the past few days the shipping situation in the Middle East has detoriated further, with over 700 vessels and nearly 20,000 mariners trapped in the Gulf. Recent reports concerning attacks on container ships and oil tankers means that multiple carriers have declared ‘force majeure’ and in one instance ‘end of voyage’ - this effectively means that the carrier will offload cargo at a safe port of their choosing and terminate the bill of lading contract, leaving the cargo owner (shipper) to pay any port charges, demurrage and cost for onward delivery at a later date.

This increasingly serious situation is causing enormous stress at ports of origin and we are now seeing a majority of container carriers issuing a suspension on all new bookings.

At the moment the affected countries are:

• UAE
• Oman
• Iraq
• Kuwait
• Jordan
• Qatar
• Bahrain
• Jordan
• Saudi Arabia

Unfortunately this means we wil not be able to ship any cargo to or from these areas for the forseeable future.

Airfreight:
Airspace above these countries remains closed with the only flights alowed to arrive and depart carrying urgent medical aid and supplies as well as repatriation efforts for overseas citizens.

Likely Additional Impacts:
Effectively 2% of the words container vessles are out of circulation and this wil inevitably have an impact on other trade lanes not directly connected to the Middle East - we expect to see further cost increases to LCL and FCL shipments the longer this continues.

We have also begun to see increasing fuel surcharges from road freight partners as a result of the closure of most, if not all oil infrastructure in the Gulf states.

We wil of course keep our clients updated with any developments and continue to support where we can.

Kind regards,
Charlie Moore.