Суэц

With several smaller Chinese container lines continuing to not only operate normally through the Red Sea, but even increasing their scale of operations, it begs the question why we are not seeing state-owned COSCO beginning to go back to Suez. It does appear that Chinese-controlled vessels are passing unmolested. One theory could be that if COSCO was to also switch back to Suez this could lead to a cascading effect whereby more major lines might want to switch back as then both CMA CGM and COSCO would go direct, in turn causing the newly elevated freight rates to once again collapse. With the current setup not only does COSCO benefit from the higher rates along with the other global carriers, it also allows a range of new Chinese players – such as Sea Legend – to get a foothold in a market otherwise dominated by the global carriers.