SeatradeMaritime: Container lines offer convoluted connections from Asia – Middle East

Containers lines are offering increasingly convoluted routings including overland connections to keep trade flowing between Asia and the Gulf region in the Middle East.

With major container carriers having suspended services through the Strait of Hormuz to the Arabian Gulf due to the security threat from the war in Iran and direct services from Asia into Red Sea ports as a result of the Houthi threat to commercial shipping in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait lengthy alternatives are being offered.

CMA CGM is marketing its Phoenician Service (PHOEX) that connects ports in South Korea, China, Singapore, and Malaysia with the Eastern Med port of Turkey with onward overland connections into Iraq. 

The service between East Asia and the East Med transits via the Cape of Good Hope, one of the longest Red Sea diversions, adding around 14 days to the voyage. From Mersin there are overland connections through Turkey into Iraq with an inland CMA CGM depot near to Baghdad and onward connections to the Upper Gulf Coast.

Meanwhile the world’s largest container line MSC is offering services that connect Asia to the Med via the Cape of Good Hope with onward shipping connections southbound through the Suez Canal to Red Sea ports in Saudi Arabia with overland connections to the Gulf.

MSC is offering connections from Asia through its round-the-world Dragon service that calls at Italian ports in the Med as well as Sines in Portugal and its Jade service that calls ports in Spain and Italy. Both services transit via the Cape of Good Hope from Asia to avoid the Houthi threat in the southern Red Sea. 

From the Med services connect into King Abdullah Port and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia via the Suez Canal southbound into the northern Red Sea. From the two Saudi ports inland haulage provides connections to Damman, Riyadh, Jubail, Bahrain, Kuwait, Hamad, Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi.