News / Global congestion threat as ports quickly flip from 'working' to 'overloaded'

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While rapidly escalating fuel costs may be at the forefront of shippers’ minds as the Straits of Hormuz remains de facto closed, the threat of rapidly escalating port congestion across the world continues to rise.

The initial effects of Gulf-bound cargo being diverted to other ports are being borne on India’s west coast, as The Loadstar today reports, but delegates at last week’s S&P Global event in Long Beach were warned that sudden outbursts of port congestion could impact global supply chains.

Turloch Mooney, global head of port intelligence and analytics at S&P, explained just how quickly congestion issues could develop, even at ports largely unconnected with events in the Gulf.

“Ports don’t fail smoothly, they fail in bursts – that’s why congestion shows up not just in averages, but in variants, because the system flips from ‘working’ to ‘overloaded’ very quickly, he said, adding that port congestion in combination with Cape of Good Hope transits took out one-fifth of global box shipping capacity

“In 2025, we had two major capacity sinks at the same time: Red Sea re-routings took about 7%-9% of capacity out of the system at peak; and port congestion took out 5%-10% at peak.

“Combined, that’s 15%-20% of capacity effectively taken out at peak – not because the ships didn’t exist, but because delays made them non -functional, which is also why the market can look oversupplied in fleet deliveries, yet still feel very tight in service,” he said.

And, he said, things had not improved this year, despite early hopes of a return to Red Sea transits, as severe winter weather in North Europe and pre-Chinese New Year front-loading conspiring against sailing schedules and putting port operations under further pressure.

“We did not begin the year in a clean operating state, and things just got much, much worse,” he said.

“Capacity is on the books, but functional capacity keeps disappearing as the network gets knocked off rhythm. Early 2026 still isn’t back to the pre-pandemic baseline.

“Look at Europe’s winter weather – when inland links freeze, boxes can’t get out of the yard, so yard density spikes, terminal productivity falls, and vessels have to wait offshore,” he said, and explained that the latest outbreak of fighting would only create conditions even more ripe for congestion.

“Following the new strikes, carriers must again plan for extreme uncertainty – they keep longer network designs, stretch equipment cycles, and generally run a system that’s very fragile to incremental shocks.

“The residual risk from the Red Sea and the wider conflict comes in two parts. First, as carriers abandon Suez transits because of the new strikes, schedules shift unevenly back toward the Cape of Good Hope. Different carriers move at different cadences, creating vessel bunching and massive service instability.

“Secondly, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has trapped vessels and choked-off major Gulf hubs. When strikes and blockades force carriers to suspend transits, the network is hit with a sharp, sudden loss of capacity that ripples through the whole supply chain,” he said.