Cheniere and Shell tankers change course to avoid logging as tankers divert routes

The companies are working to redirect shipping vessels to avoid logjam on the Suez Canal, including at least two US ships carrying natural gas for Cheniere and Shell / BG Group, according to data provided by MarineTraffic and ClipperData.

At least ten tankers and container ships are changing course as Ever Date, one of the largest container ships in the world, remains stranded along the canal across Egypt, a MarineTraffic spokesman told CNBC. Georgios Hatzimanolis.

“We expect this number to increase as this closure progresses,” Hatzimanolis said.

The 1,300-foot ship crashed on Tuesday from Malaysia to the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The stranded vessel caused other ships to retreat into the canal, withholding goods worth about $ 400 million per hour, according to the Lloyd’s List shipping journal. This has risen slowly over the past few days, after Egypt’s repeated efforts to re-float the 247,000-ton ship failed. Officials there use eight large tugs and excavation equipment on the banks of the canal to dig sand around the grounded ship.

According to MarineTraffic, there are 97 ships stranded in the upper part of the canal, 23 ships waiting in the middle and 108 ships in the lower part. The logjam stretches across the Red Sea, passing through the Gulf of Aden, to the border of Yemen and Oman.

“From Asia to Europe we see ships diverting to the Indian Ocean, just below the southern tip of Sri Lanka,” Hatzimanolis added. For European ships coming from Asia, around Africa instead of going through the canal can add up to seven days to a ship’s voyage, he said.

Oil tanker Maran Gas Andros LNG left Ingleside, Texas, on March 19, loaded with Cheniere fuel and a transport capacity of 170,000 cubic meters of liquid natural gas. The Pan Americas LNG tanker, which carries Shell / BG fuel, left Sabine Pass on March 17 and can carry up to 174,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas. Matt Smith, director of cargo research for ClipperData, confirmed which companies used the ships.

Both oil tankers changed course in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean before heading around the Cape.

ClipperData also shows Suezmax Marlin Santorini loaded with 700,000 barrels of Midland West Texas Intermediate crude oil moving away from the canal. Smith said the initial route to Suez was an “unusual diversion.”

“The vast majority of U.S. crude oil exports avoid the Suez Canal, heading for Europe or around the Cape of Good Hope to Asia,” Smith explained. Suezmax Marlin was at Magellan’s Seabrook Terminal in Houston, Texas, on March 10, where it was covered with 330,000 barrels of light crude oil from West Texas before heading to Galveston, Texas the next day.

The ship then left the United States for Port Said in northeastern Egypt, but turned south on Thursday after crossing the Azores near Portugal. “The ship has not yet updated its declared destination,” Smith said.

ClipperData shows the number of fully loaded fuel tanks waiting outside Port Said as well as on the US Gulf Coast. As of Friday afternoon, two other tankers and a Suezmax, the largest oil tanker that can sail on the Suez Canal, which transports vacuum gasoline from the United States, were crossing Crete and were to anchor off Egypt.

Another ship, the HMM Rotterdam container, left the canal just before entering the Strait of Gibraltar, changing course to encircle Africa.

Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO, said the diversion pattern is similar among other ships.

“We see not only road haulage ships in both directions, but also LNG carriers and dry bulk carriers from the Gulf of Mexico in the United States,” Sand said. “Ships take a sharp right turn in the middle of the Atlantic to head south to the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the logging around Suez.”

Kevin Book, CEO of ClearView Energy Partners, says that while a long outage in Suez introduces latency into the liquid natural gas supply system, the length of the delay depends on where the ship started, where it is going, and where it is going. in which he changed course. .

“For US Gulf exporters, bypassing the horn only adds three days or less at sea to the port of Tokyo,” Book said. “For cargo from Doha to northwestern Europe, this route could take ten days to travel.”

Goods originating in the Gulf of Mexico and stranded in the Mediterranean may face a ten-day diversion instead of three, he said.

At the time of publication, Cheniere and Shell / BG responded to CNBC’s request for comment.

MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company said 11 of its ships were redirected, 19 ships were anchored on both sides of the canal and two ships were returned as of Friday afternoon.

The blockade of the Suez Canal is one of “the biggest disruptions to global trade in recent years,” MSC Vice President Caroline Becquart said in an email on Saturday.

“We think that the second quarter of 2021 will be more disrupted than in the first three months and maybe even more challenging than it was at the end of last year,” she said. “Companies should expect the Suez blockade to lead to a constraint on shipping capacity and equipment and, as a result, some deterioration in supply chain reliability issues in the coming months.”