⚡🇾🇪 Following Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd Shipping Company has stated that it will suspend all travel of it's commerical freighters through the Red Sea for the next three days, as they're examining whether to suspend it for the foreseeable future or not, as no final decision has been made.

This company is the 5th largest shipping company in the world.

@themediterraneanman

🚢 🌍 🇺🇸 "We shared this slide yesterday, but here are some (very basic) routing options from Asia to the USEC."

📎 Nathan Strang

🇵🇦 🚢 Over in the western hemisphere, meanwhile, the volume of ships willing to wait for the severely restricted Panama Canal has plummeted in recent weeks. Drought has forced the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) to slash transits leading to a huge migration of ships transiting via other longer routes, something that is now about to play out in a large way at the Suez.

https://splash247.com/red-sea-traffic-comes-to-a-halt-for-many-seeking-naval-assistance/

📖 🚢 'Consider those big, fat, slow ships.'

📝 Excerpt from Peter Zeihan's The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization 

"Quick war story, in this case, the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s: By 1983 the conflict had reached a stalemate, inducing both countries to fling missiles at one another’s shipping in attempts to strangle their opponent economically. Altogether some three hundred vessels were struck. About fifty were disabled, and a dozen sunk.Compared to the size of global shipping at the time, it was barely a footnote.

But that handful of events nearly destroyed the
global . . . insurance sector

Imagine if a similar event were to occur today"

🚢 🇪🇬 🌍 "By avoiding the Suez, this will force nations to react, not the least of which, Egypt which will be losing tolls from the canal."

🔶️ All of this goes to the point of showing how global shipping is impacting not just the economics of the world, but also the politics.

🔶️ What political and military decisions are made with regards to the free transit of ships through the region will have lasting impact.

https://www.iss-shipping.com/suez-canal-authority-to-increase-transit-fees-by-5-15-from-2024/

📎 Sal Mercogliano

🇺🇸 Congress approves bill barring any president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO

https://thehill.com/homenews/4360407-congress-approves-bill-barring-president-withdrawing-nato/

🔋 ⛏️🚗 Visualizing the World’s Largest Lithium Producers

https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-worlds-largest-lithium-producers/

⚡️🇪🇬 Regarding Egypt and the shenanigans occurring at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Comparing the figures regarding the Suez Canal in November and in December, things are not looking too good.

In November of 2023, 2,264 vessels passed through the Suez Canal, while in October, 2,345 passed, that means a decrease of over 81 ships, and in terms of revenue, the revenues in November amounted to 854.7 Million US dollars, while the revenues in October amounted to 880.1 Million US dollars, a decrease of over 3% and 25.4 million US dollars less compared to the previous month.

To the blind man, it is obvious that the losses recorded in December will be much more severe than the decrease noted in November, and that, is bad news, because the Suez Canal is practically a main life artery for the Arab Republic of Egypt, economically speaking, as the 10 billion US dollars or so gained from the Suez Canal is one of the few reliable methods of gaining hard, foreign currency.

Egypt militarily did not involve itself much in the war in Yemen, our only real action was back at 2015, when the Egyptian navy bombarded Yemen after the Houthis ominously stated that they had Anti-Ship missiles and were capable of using them, since then, we have barely involved ourselves in the conflict, and we always kept pushing for peace and reconciliation, as war, contrary to popular belief, is bad for business in this specific case.

@themediterraneanman