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The Maersk Genoa, Maersk Londrina, Ebba Maersk and Gjertrud Maersk container vessels, which had been sitting in the Red Sea just south of Saudi Arabia’s port of Jeddah in recent days, were on Thursday rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, a Maersk schedule showed.
A fifth vessel, Maersk Utah, that had also been stuck in the area, had not yet been rerouted, but a Maersk spokesperson said it would not sail past Yemen.
Sending the ships back via the Suez Canal would incur fresh fees to pay for the passage through the canal and add significant delays and extra fuel costs for a journey around the Cape of Good Hope.
Maersk said last month it had imposed a transit disruption surcharge (TDS) and a peak season surcharge (PSS), adding a total of US$700 to the cost of a standard 20-foot container travelling from China to Northern Europe.
The Suez Canal is used by roughly one-third of global container ship cargo, and re-directing ships around the southern tip of Africa is expected to cost up to US$1 million extra in fuel for every round trip between Asia and Northern Europe.
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