News / Emissions expected to increase as box ships re-route and burn more fuel

© Igor Groshev |

Emissions are expected to increase significantly as shipping lines avoid the Suez Canal and their vessels take the long route around southern Africa.

The route will add some 3,000 nautical miles and five days to each voyage, with additional fuel consumption that could be more than 1,000 tonnes for some vessels – a situation is not favourable for ship emissions, with 3.15 tonnes of CO2 emitted for each tonne of fuel burned.

Using a more conservative estimate as the basis of his calculations, Xeneta shipping analyst Peter Sand nonetheless came to similar conclusions, telling The Loadstar: “Every ship that is re-routed away from Suez to the Cape of Good Hope on the Far East-to-North Europe or East Med trade will have to use 900 tonnes of fuel each way, on top of what would be spent on a Suez transit.

“A factor of around three for CO2-emissions gives you 2,700 tonnes of CO2 extra for every ship that goes south of Africa instead of via Suez… double that for a round voyage.”

Initially, this additional fuel burn is likely to be compounded by vessels speeding up to keep up with schedules. Should the diversions continue, vessels are likely to be folded into trades and slow-steam to make up for the drop in capacity, Mr Sand suggested.

“If all services Far East-Europe get rerouted, and weekly services are upheld, up to 50 more ships will be needed – assuming the speed of ships is unchanged,” he said. “Currently, a service like the AE10/Silk from the 2M deploys 14 ships.”

Shipping lines, beset by systemic over-tonnaging since last year, will be only too happy to provide the additional capacity needed to support this new trend. Indeed, it is not the first time this year that they have done this. In May, THE Alliance re-routed vessels around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid Suez Canal fees.

Xeneta market analyst Emily Stausbøll told The Loadstar it would be possible to offset additional emissions through slow-steaming.

“It is more to do with slow-steaming more than going round the Cape… regardless of whether they’re going through the canal or around Africa, they have slowed down enough to make up for it,” she said.

Earlier today, Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen said around 67 vessels were currently being re-routed, while a further 75 were at anchor  awaiting orders.

“I can’t say anything about how long it is going to continue… but so far nine out of the ten largest ocean carriers in the world, representing around 85% of container capacity, have re-routed or paused,” Mr Petersen told CNBC. “That is around a 20% decrease in capacity on that tradelane.

“[This] could lead to a price increase for shippers… of two, three, or even four times,” he added.

Meanwhile,  Evergreen and OOCL are now refusing Israeli cargo, and it is already becoming more expensive to ship goods to Israeli ports, with Hapag-Lloyd, Zim and Maersk adding surcharges of $20-100 per teu.