Container shipping routes are shifting due to the Iran war - prices of goods could go higher.

By Claudia Assis

Ships are increasingly sailing through India and Sri Lanka, and through the Panama Canal.

A cargo ship and tugboat sail through the Panama Canal's Cocoli Locks in Panama.

The near-standstill of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is redrawing the map for container shipping - the backbone of global trade - and adding to worries about inflation.

Trade is like water - it will find its way. But all that rejiggering takes a toll, and the cost of shipping goods around the world continues to rise. A composite index tracking global container-shipping spot prices is up more than 30% since the start of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.

Container-shipping companies "are adjusting their operation, they cannot wait," said Antonella Teodoro, an economist and analyst at freight and logistics consulting firm MDS Transmodal. Eleven weeks into the war, container shipping disruptions are more acute than at the start of the conflict, she said.

Container-shipping routes are bypassing once-key Middle Eastern ports such as Dubai's Jebel Ali, the world's ninth-busiest container port, stopping instead at Colombo, Sri Lanka; and Mundra and Nhava Sheva in India, which are far down on the list of major container ports.

Ships continue to avoid the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, rerouting through South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, which adds about two weeks to a trip from Asia to Europe and adds to fuel costs. Since more ships are needed for the same trip frequencies, all other shipping routes feel the impact, even if the Asia-Europe routes are at the center of concerns.

There have been no reports of attacks by Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea, but shipping companies prefer the safety of the South Africa route, Teodoro said.

Any upticks in the price of goods from the higher shipping costs would come at a fraught moment for the global economy - and particularly the U.S. - where retail prices of gasoline and diesel are near all-time highs and have pushed U.S. inflation to its worst in nearly three years.

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U.S. retail sales rose, but only modestly if higher prices at gas pumps are taken out of the equation. Markets remain worried about a potential pullback in consumer spending as the conflict grinds on and retail energy prices continue to climb. Companies can elect to pass on to consumers the higher shipping and energy costs, but they also risk losing customers.

Container-cargo flows are nowhere near as dependent on the Strait of Hormuz as crude oil is - about a fifth of the world's crude and crude products navigated through Hormuz in peacetime. But the war is a threat to the global supply chain, already fragile after other recent geopolitical shocks and trade wars.

Shipping prices were down before the Iran conflict, as the market had excess capacity and there were concerns about diminished trade amid trade wars. The war changed that trajectory, and spot container shipping started to climb. The Drewry's World Container Index increased 12% to $2,553 per 40-foot container this week, and is up nearly 35% from the start of the war.

Prices had stabilized around $2,200 and $2,300 per 40-foot container in April as hopes grew that the conflict might be nearing a resolution. However, as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran fizzled, they rose again.

Hormuz's pain is Panama Canal's gain

Some container shipping is going through the Panama Canal, which has reported increases in daily transits since the war, without specifying which types of ships.

Daily transits rose 24% to an average of 39 daily crossings in April from 34 in January, canal authorities said. But passage through Panama is not a choice all ships can make.

The canal's locks have strict ship size limits, and even its expanded locks cannot handle some of the world's newest and biggest container ships, which have the capacity to transport about 24,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs.

Fully laden massive oil tankers, or Very Large Crude Carriers, also cannot transit through the Panama Canal due to size constraints.

But the standoff at the Strait of Hormuz has led to increased transits of smaller tankers through the canal, according to maritime data-analytics firm Kpler, which measures weekly transits.

That shows a 46% increase in weekly tanker transits through the canal - from 76 weekly transits in the week of May 4, from 52 weekly transits in the week of Feb. 23, some four days before the start of the war.

-Claudia Assis

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05-15-26 0723ET