Opening snapshot

Ocean is still soft underneath with soft demand, but Hormuz disruption/Iran conflict, higher fuel, longer routings, trapped capacity, and war-risk costs are reinforcing the floor under rates. Air reacted first but ocean is starting to feel the impact with high risk to life and vessels. Red Sea/Suez remains open but commercial normalization has moved further out. U.S. tariff volatility adds landed-cost and booking uncertainty.

Key market points

·        Demand: Still soft overall. Global demand improved, but North America imports and European exports remain weaker, and the Asia-Europe imbalance is above 4:1.

·        Capacity: Ample on paper, tighter in practice. Blank sailings, diversions, trapped Gulf capacity, and weaker reliability are tightening usable supply.

·        Routing: Red Sea/Suez normalization is delayed again. Cargo will remain on or revert back to Cape routings.

·        Carrier leverage: Better than February because costs and usable capacity are moving back in carriers’ favor.

·        Rate direction: Not a sharp rebound. A firmer floor, with selective upside on conflict-exposed trades.

Other top issues

1. Hormuz: Active network risk. New alerts that more than 200,000 TEU  are caught in conflict, Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz closure scenario. Highest-priority is life risks.

2. Energy: Higher oil and gas are feeding into bunker, jet-fuel, and inland transport cost.  Expect related costs rising.

3. Tariffs: US Supreme Court ruling and Trump administration actions are adding landed-cost uncertainty, refunds, and short-term shipment distortion. Refunds will happen but expect new types US of tariffs soon.

4. Insurance / crews: War-risk cover and mariner safety now influence route viability. ( know your insurance & risk!)

5. Ports: Expect selective backlog and bunching at Gulf-adjacent and transshipment gateways, not global congestion.

6. Contracts: Carriers now have a better case for holding the line than they did before the Iran shock.

7. Ports: Expect selective bunching and backlog, not universal global port collapse.

8. Air demand now: Reliability and secure lift matter more than simple price on conflict-sensitive lanes.

HORMUZ / RED SEA WATCH

Current state: Red Sea/Suez is not shut, but risk constrained. The practical baseline is caution, selective transits, and heavier use of Cape routings.

Hormuz: Treat as the primary live risk. It is now a fuel, insurance, crew-safety, and network-capacity problem at the same time.

Implication: If disruption persists, all-in transport costs rise through bunker, war-risk, diversions, and tighter usable capacity. If it cools quickly, the softer 2026 base case can reassert.

NOTE: If the conflict cools quickly, the market can still revert back toward the softer, oversupplied 2026 base case.

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Trade-lane snapshots (now & next 6-8 weeks)

Compared with 7 February, the 8 March WOWL rate-trend tab shows broad firming across the main east-west lanes. Historical columns still place many current rates below year-ago and six-month-ago levels, but one-month and three-month comparisons improved on most lanes. The outlook column is forward-looking: 'going up' means a mild-to-midlevel increase from current rates.