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170 container ships. 450,000 boxes. Frozen in place. That is the reality inside the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel right now. And it happened in under 48 hours.
Every major carrier, MSC, Maersk, CMA, ONE, Hapag-Lloyd, has suspended bookings for the Gulf region. Some vessels pulled out mid-route. If you manage freight moving to Dubai, Qatar, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia’s eastern ports, this is your Monday morning briefing.
In the latest episode of The Dockflow Dispatch, Dockflow co-founder Pauline Van Ostaeyen and resident researcher Michiel Gabriëls laid out exactly what happened, what it means for your client portfolio, and the three specific moves to make this week.
What Happened: A Cascade of Closures
The Strait of Hormuz is a 21-mile wide chokepoint between Iran and Oman. 21% of the world’s oil passes through it, along with roughly 35% of all liquefied natural gas and a significant share of global container trade. It is the only maritime gateway to the Gulf’s major ports, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Kuwait City, and Basra.
Here is how fast it closed:
On February 28, the Houthis announced they were resuming attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. On March 1st, the conflict escalated directly into the Strait of Hormuz itself. Five merchant vessels were hit. One, the Safin Prestige, a 1,700 TEU container ship, caught fire inside the strait and was abandoned by its crew. That is not a near miss. That is a vessel lost.
The shipping lines did not wait for a second one.
By March 2nd, the industry response was near-simultaneous:
- MSC, the world’s largest container line, suspended all worldwide bookings for Middle East-destined cargo. Vessels already in the Gulf were instructed to proceed to “safe shelter areas until further notice.”
- ONE followed within hours with a full suspension.
- CMA CGM pulled all Gulf cargo acceptance.
- Hapag-Lloyd announced a booking stop across UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Sharjah, Dammam, and Jubail.
That is essentially every port that matters in the region, gone simultaneously!
Traffic through the Hormuz shipping channel is now down at least 80% from normal levels. Approximately 170 container ships carrying around 450,000 TEU are currently inside the Gulf and cannot exit. That is roughly 1.4% of the entire global container fleet frozen in place. One estimate puts MSC alone at 350,000 TEU of cargo currently in limbo.
Why This Is Worse Than the Red Sea
The Red Sea disruption was severe. But ships could at least reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, adding time and cost, but maintaining the option to move.
The Strait of Hormuz shipping lines face a fundamentally different problem: the Persian Gulf is a cul-de-sac. The strait is the only way in and the only way out. There is no alternative sea route to Dubai, Kuwait, or Qatar. If the Hormuz shipping channel is closed, those ports are unreachable by ship. Full stop.
What carriers are doing instead is discharging cargo at alternative hubs that sit outside the strait, on the Gulf of Oman or Arabian Sea side where vessels can still reach without transiting Hormuz:
- Salalah, Oman
- Sohar, Oman
- Khorfakan, UAE East Coast (ocean side)
- Colombo, Sri Lanka (for some traffic)
Cargo reaches one of these hubs and then waits, either for a feeder vessel to move it onward when conditions allow, or it goes overland. Khorfakan to Dubai is roughly 130 kilometres, about two hours by truck. Manageable for one container. Not manageable for hundreds simultaneously. The cost and congestion add up very fast.
And the 170 vessels already inside the Gulf when closures began? They are trapped. The Persian Gulf does not have a back door.
The Port Cascade Nobody Modelled
The closure of the Hormuz shipping channel triggered an immediate cascade at the ports themselves.
On March 1st, the same day as the vessel attacks, DP World suspended all operations at Jebel Ali in Dubai. That is the world’s ninth busiest container port, with roughly 14.5 million TEU of annual capacity. The suspension followed a fire caused by falling debris from an aerial interception.
Kuwait’s port of Shuaiba suspended. Bahrain’s Khalifa bin Salman port suspended. Qatar’s Ministry of Transport temporarily suspended all maritime navigation.
The closure is therefore multi-layered. The strait is a war zone. The ports are suspended. And the only viable rerouting option adds two weeks and significant cost per voyage.
There is one more layer that has not received enough attention: the insurance deadline.
The P&I clubs, the insurance entities that cover war risk for merchant vessels, ended war risk cover for Gulf-bound shipping at midnight on March 5th. That deadline has now passed. Any coverage restarting will be at rates that most smaller operators cannot absorb. As Lloyd’s List put it, this is “shipping’s risk appetite being tested.”
A more direct translation: if you have unsorted Gulf cargo, you are now operating without a safety net.
Carrier Surcharges: The Numbers You Need
Every open quote issued before March 2nd is now wrong. Here is where each major Strait of Hormuz shipping line stands:
| Carrier | Status | Surcharge |
| MSC | Full suspension | N/A — no new bookings |
| ONE | Full suspension | N/A — no new bookings |
| CMA CGM | Full suspension | $2,000/TEU on already-accepted cargo |
| Hapag-Lloyd | Booking stop | $1,500/TEU standard; $3,500/TEU reefer |
| Maersk | Operating via rerouting | $1,800 (20ft dry); $3,000 (40ft dry); $3,800 (reefer/special) |
The range is $800 to $4,000 per box, depending on carrier and cargo type, all on top of normal ocean freight, all effective from March 2nd.
Three Moves to Make This Week
Move 1: Audit Your Gulf Exposure Today
Before your first client call, before you look at rates, pull every active booking touching UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, Iraq, and Oman.
For each shipment, identify four things:
- Which carrier — suspension status varies
- Current status — at origin, in transit, at a transshipment hub, or in final mile
- Documentation stage
- Client delivery deadline
If you are on Dockflow, the platform has a built-in filter for exactly this, active shipments by affected corridor. Pull that first before building the list manually.
Cargo already on the water is your highest priority. Those vessels are either in shelter areas or being rerouted right now. You need to know which one, and you need to know it before your client does. That means a phone call to your carrier contact, not an email. Emails are running at least 48 hours for responses. Go to your account manager, not the bookings desk.
Move 2: Brief Your Clients Proactively
The industry’s most connected analysts have openly described the current situation as “flying blind.” If that is the view from the top, your clients certainly do not have the picture. The freight forwarder who reaches out first, with facts, a revised plan, and a cost update, is the one who builds trust in a crisis. The one who waits for the client to call asking where their cargo is will face a difficult contract renewal conversation.
A proactive client brief has four parts:
- What is happening — one or two sentences, no panic, just facts
- Which specific shipments are affected — use booking references, be precise
- The revised plan — alternative routing, applicable transshipment hub, new ETA
- The cost change — the surcharge named and broken out, not buried in a freight rate total
If clients push back on the surcharge, show them the carrier advisories. They are publicly posted on each carrier’s website. This is not a decision one forwarder made, it is every major carrier, simultaneously, effective the same date. That conversation shifts from “why are you charging me this” to “okay, what do we do next.”
Move 3: Reprice Everything
Every open quote issued before March 2nd must be voided and reissued. The war risk surcharge goes in as its own named line item, carrier name, amount, transparent. Do not round it into the freight rate. Do not bury it.
And look beyond Gulf lanes. Any contract or long-term rate on Asia-Europe or Trans-Pacific priced before this week does not reflect where the market is heading. Those 170 vessels frozen inside the Hormuz shipping channel represent real capacity pulled from the global market for as long as this lasts. VLCC tanker rates hit an all-time record above $400,000 per day this week. Marine fuel in New York is up 18% in seven days. Those cost pressures eventually flow through every shipping lane.
On demurrage: cargo is currently sitting at suspended ports, Jebel Ali, Shuaiba, or waiting at alternative transshipment hubs for onward connections it was never supposed to need. Document everything. Every carrier communication, dated and timestamped. That paper trail matters enormously in demurrage disputes or insurance claims later.
On Timing: What to Tell Your Clients
Nobody knows when the Hormuz shipping channel reopens. That is the most honest and useful thing to communicate right now.
Do not promise clients a resolution in two weeks. If it does not happen, you have caused damage twice — once when the disruption hit, and again when the expectation was not met. The Red Sea took over a year to partially normalise, and that was arguably a simpler geopolitical situation than this one.
Build your client communication around: here is what we know, here is the contingency, we will keep you updated as it develops. Plan for weeks to months. If it resolves faster, you look good. Do not set clients up for a second disappointment.
The Bottom Line
The Strait of Hormuz shipping crisis is not a standard disruption. The strait is closed, the major ports are suspended, the insurance window has passed, and the affected capacity has nowhere to go. Unlike every other major routing crisis in recent memory, there is no workaround sea route, the Persian Gulf simply does not have one.
The forwarders who emerge from this stronger will be the ones who moved first: audited their exposure before their clients called, briefed proactively with facts and plans, and repriced honestly with surcharges visible.
The forwarders who waited are already behind.
We will be back soon with a longer view: what a sustained Gulf closure means for routing strategies and trade flows over the next six to twelve months, and whether this crisis finally forces the industry to build the disruption playbooks it has been putting off for years.
If this was useful, share it with one freight forwarder who has Gulf trade. They need it this week.
