Red Sea Disruptions Drive Up War Risk Insurance Premiums

209

War-risk premiums may have increased by as much as 900% since the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea began.

Troubling Predictions

This is one of several troubling predictions in a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report released yesterday.

UNCTAD said that, according to some sources, from below a level of 0.1% of the value of a vessel, during the final weeks of last year, war-risk premiums had jumped to as much as 1% of vessel value by the start of this month.

Meanwhile, journeys through the Suez Canal this year have dropped 42%, year on year, and via Panama by 49%, noted UNCTAD, adding: “This volume corresponds to approximately 12% of [US] total trade volume in tons (21.3% of exports and 5.7% of imports).”

Rerouting from the Suez Canal around the Cape of Good Hope has affected containerships the most. By the second week of February, 586 container vessels had been rerouted,” said UNCTAD.

Suez Canal disruption has jeopardized 33.9% of trade in Sudan, 30.5% in Djibouti, 26.4% in Saudi Arabia and 19.4% in Seychelles.

Inflationary Pressure

Disruptions create inflationary pressure, which drives up goods costs, especially food, as was dramatically illustrated during the post-pandemic freight rate explosion, with “about half of the increase in food prices observed in 2022… due to higher transport costs,” UNCTAD said.

Meanwhile, a combination of rerouting round the Cape and the faster speeds associated with it may be increasing ship fuel consumption – by as much as 70% for a Far East-North Europe voyage, added UNCTAD.

While The Loadstar has covered how changing routes would add to vessel fuel consumption, UNCTAD found that speed has picked up as well, spiking from vessel averages of 14.6 knots in October to close to 16.2 knots in mid-January. And it calculated that a speed increase of two knots could be responsible for a 31% increase in fuel consumed per mile.

The report said: “Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to disruptions in shipping networks and to shifts in trade patterns that drive up costs, alter their connectivity and access to the marketplace…”

Did you subscribe to our daily Newsletter?

It’s Free! Click here to Subscribe

Source: TheLoadstar

 

5 COMMENTS

  1. Hello there! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d ask.
    Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe
    guest authoring a blog article or vice-versa?
    My site goes over a lot of the same topics as yours
    and I feel we could greatly benefit from each other.
    If you might be interested feel free to send me
    an email. I look forward to hearing from you! Fantastic blog by the way!

    I saw similar here: Sklep online

  2. Hi there it’s me, I am also visiting this website daily, this website is
    really good and the users are truly sharing good thoughts.
    I saw similar here: dobry sklep and also here: sklep internetowy

  3. Wow, superb blog layout! How lengthy have you been blogging
    for? you made running a blog glance easy.
    The total look of your web site is fantastic, let alone the content material!
    You can see similar: sklep internetowy and here sklep online

  4. I’ve been online for more than three hours now, and I haven’t found any articles as fascinating as yours. I think it’s worth it enough. If more bloggers and website owners created content as good as yours, the internet would be far more useful than it already is.

Comments are closed.