The effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has blocked the flow of a substantial portion of the energy that powers the global economy.
But even if the waterway reopens tomorrow, the disruption to global supply chains will be felt long after ships have been cleared to pass en masse, according to shipping and trade experts.
According to Arab Media,“When the war is officially over, and the bombardments are stopped, that does not mean that the war is over for logistics, because then the real work starts,” said Nils Haupt, senior director for corporate communications at the German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd.
“We will see hundreds of ships who want to call in at the key ports in the Persian Gulf. Lots of containers are going into the region, and we will see disruption of supply chains going to and from the Persian Gulf,” Haupt told Al Jazeera, using another name for the Gulf, which is also known as the Arabian Gulf.
At present, some 2,000 ships are stranded in the region amid Iran’s partial blockade of the strait, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). It has been allowing passage of only a few vessels from the countries deemed friendly.
Among them, about 400 vessels are in the nearby Gulf of Oman, suggesting that shipping firms are holding position for when the strait reopens, according to maritime intelligence company Windward.
Other ships have been diverted to the Suez Canal or taken the much longer journey around the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Africa to make deliveries to Asia and Europe.
Oil shipments from Saudi Arabia have been diverted through the Red Sea, bypassing the strait.
Svein Ringbakken, managing director of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Mutual War Risks Association, said even with logistics facilities running at full capacity, it would take time to clear the backlog of oil, gas and other goods unloaded from vessels.
Ringbakken said the task has been made even more difficult by attacks that have damaged energy and transport infrastructure across the Middle East.
More than 40 energy assets across the region have been “severely or very severely damaged”, according to the International Energy Agency, with oil and gas companies, including QatarEnergy, the Kuwait Petroleum Company, and Bahrain’s Bapco Energies, declaring force majeure due to production disruptions.
“The short answer is that it would take months to get shipping supply chains back to normal because of the backlog,” Ringbakken told.
“Production lines have had to be stopped for many products because of a lack of storage capacity,” he added. “Add to this the damage to both production facilities and port infrastructure. This all adds inefficiencies when the strait is opened.”
Iran’s effective closure of the waterway, launched in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes that began on February 28, has disrupted about 20 percent of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies, driving up energy prices worldwide.
The blockade has also interrupted the export of large amounts of petrochemicals, fertiliser, and raw materials used in plastic manufacturing.
One ship reportedly paid $2m for the right to transit, according to Lloyd’s List, while Iranian legislators this week approved legislation to impose transit fees on the strait, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.
