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African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

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11–20 of 219 posts

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#11
post #6
post #3

Is there anyone here with relevant expertise who can tell us: Are the Red Sea attacks are a relatively minor, temporary hiccup? Or can they lead to another global wave of supply-chain disruptions, like the those we experienced during the pandemic? There's lots of evidence that the pandemic's supply-chain disruptions triggered inflation, and we're still fighting it. I'm not looking for predictions. I'm more interested…

Where’s the flexport people when you need them?

https://twitter.com/flexport/status/1737874384982069746

They have a webinar about it. Ryan (@typesfast) has also been tweeting about it a bunch.

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#12
post #5

You know how sometimes you find theres an simpler way of doing things? Sometimes its easier, or more scalable, it just takes creative thinking. Imagine for a moment a crazy idea, instead of sending a strike force to go turn people into mist, we try talking first? Its this weird phenomena, sometimes people dont rush into violence when they feel like their grievances are being taken seriously.

The Houthis want conflict to remain in power domestically.

They're not really Houthis, they are followers of Hussein al-Houthi.

I don't know why the Western media insists on giving them this name. Hussein al-Houthi was a Houthi, but most of his supporters are not. Would you call all Barak Obama supporters "Obamas"?

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#13
post #3

Is there anyone here with relevant expertise who can tell us: Are the Red Sea attacks are a relatively minor, temporary hiccup? Or can they lead to another global wave of supply-chain disruptions, like the those we experienced during the pandemic? There's lots of evidence that the pandemic's supply-chain disruptions triggered inflation, and we're still fighting it. I'm not looking for predictions. I'm more interested…

Peter Zeihan analysis from a couple weeks ago: https://youtu.be/WJE7g08NldQ

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#14
post #3

Is there anyone here with relevant expertise who can tell us: Are the Red Sea attacks are a relatively minor, temporary hiccup? Or can they lead to another global wave of supply-chain disruptions, like the those we experienced during the pandemic? There's lots of evidence that the pandemic's supply-chain disruptions triggered inflation, and we're still fighting it. I'm not looking for predictions. I'm more interested…

Not really. My guess is that this will be resolved through a combination of re-routing, new players (friendly to the Persians/Houthis) who will take advantage, and a bit of higher prices or some delay. The two big regional players (Saudi Arabia, UAE) are ignoring this because they made their deals already.

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#15
It's fascinating to try to imagine the atmosphere in the room as they dust of decades old contingency plans of "what to do if Suez is closed?" and divert a sixth of the worlds shipping around the whole continent of Africa, probably adding a lot of cost in fuel and serious operational concerns as the ports naturally aren't ready for such a huge increase in traffic.

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#16
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where’s the flexport people when you need them?

https://twitter.com/flexport/status/1737874384982069746 They have a webinar about it. Ryan (@typesfast) has also been tweeting about it a bunch.

Thank you for the link to that short video. I watched it.

Reading between the lines, my take-away is:

Both shipping times and costs are rising.

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#17

You know how sometimes you find theres an simpler way of doing things? Sometimes its easier, or more scalable, it just takes creative thinking. Imagine for a moment a crazy idea, instead of sending a strike force to go turn people into mist, we try talking first? Its this weird phenomena, sometimes people dont rush into violence when they feel like their grievances are being taken seriously.

“The Houthis aren’t going to stop what they’re doing, until the Israeli offensive in Gaza concludes,” Gregory Brew, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, told Al Jazeera, “and even then they are likely to continue for some time after.”

Their demands and intentions are quite clear and solely focused on Israeli-bound ships, although it does seem like this is giving them more leverage with respect to Yemen's agenda which has seen years of war from US-Saudi aggression.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/12/22/beyond-gaza-ho...

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#18
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Houthis want conflict to remain in power domestically.

That logic could be applied to all belligerents in the conflict, can you name a country that doesnt apply to?

Did FDR want to join WW2 to stay in power at home?

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#19
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/flexport/status/1737874384982069746 They have a webinar about it. Ryan (@typesfast) has also been tweeting about it a bunch.

Thank you for the link to that short video. I watched it. Reading between the lines, my take-away is: Both shipping times and costs are rising.

> Both shipping times and costs are rising.

It’s usually positively correlated. Longer shipping time means more demands for ships and there aren’t unlimited amount of ships.

Re: African Ports Overwhelmed by Red Sea Reroutings

#20
Tanzania may have the lowest GDP of the three port countries mentioned but Dar es Salaam has the largest population compared to the smaller cities of Mombasa and Durban. From what little I understand the Tanzanian government may be in the best place politically to use these stress tests to focus more attention on port health and capabilities. I'd be happy for anyone else to weigh in.
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