Red Sea: Valencia beat Piraeus

The crisis in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks is temporarily changing the port status quo in the Mediterranean, as confirmed by the first data on container traffic announced by the region’s ports for the first month of the year.

The most characteristic examples are those of the ports of Valencia and Piraeus, with the latter losing ground at the beginning of the year and Valencia being one of the winning ports of the changes in ship routes imposed by the Houthis.

As the port of Valencia announced yesterday, which in recent years has been “competing” with Piraeus for more than the two, it will maintain the fourth place among European ports in “container” loads, the handling of containers increased by 10.93 %, reaching a total of 388,366 teu.

According to the port authority, China remains Valenciaport’s main trading partner, handling 48,936 containers, followed by the United States with 23,646 containers.

Notable increases in traffic with Valencia were seen from Saudi Arabia (+123.71%), Egypt (+122.71%) and Belgium (+109.95%), attributed to an increase in transshipment activity at the docks of Valencia mainly from Asia bound for other Mediterranean ports.

At the same time, at the two piers of Piraeus controlled by COSCO Shipping Ports, through its subsidiary SEP (PCT), the handling of containers recorded a decrease of 12.7%, to 281.8 thousand teu compared to 322.8 thousand teu in the same month last year , while a decrease to the levels of 6%-7% was also registered by the traffic at Pier 1 of the PPA, which, however, handles far fewer containers (around 50,000 per month), raising the total container handling in Piraeus to approximately 330 thousand.

After the Houthi attacks, almost all container shipping companies and many other shipping lines (tankers, dry bulk carriers, etc.) choose to send their ships around Africa.

Route changes from the Far East to Europe via South Africa, especially of container ships, favor the ports of Spain and Morocco at the expense of Piraeus, which no longer has the advantage of being the first port in Europe after Suez, resulting in the loss of a significant cargo destined for transhipment.

And while in the previous days a slight return of ships had begun to be recorded in Erythra and the Suez Canal, the situation seems to be reversing again after the double attack by the Houthis on the Greek-flagged ship “Sea Champion” and the Lebanese “Rubymar”.

According to freight brokerage Clarksons Research, arrivals in the Gulf of Aden’s Bab-el-Mandeb strait during the seven days from February 10 to 18 were down 67% on the first half of December, but there was “marginal increase’ compared to a week ago, when arrivals were down 71%. There was a slight increase in the number of ships passing through the straits mainly in the liquid and dry cargo sectors.

Container ship crossings remain very limited, down 91%, with around 620 vessels currently diverted away from the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. In any case, the problem remains and it remains to be seen whether it will get worse after the Houthi double attack.

However, container fares remain at very high levels (two and three times higher) despite the small drop they have recorded recently. As the analysts note, the shipping companies would like to keep the rates as high as possible in the spot market in view of the negotiations – within March – for the new contracts with the shippers, who of course wish to further drop them.