BERLIN (Reuters) -German shipping company Hapag Lloyd will continue to divert its ships from transiting the Red Sea and Suez Canal for security reasons, a spokesman for the German shipping group said on Friday. maritime transport.

A new assessment of the situation will be carried out on January 2, added this spokesperson.

Sea freight groups have diverted their ships to the Cape of Good Hope for their journeys between Asia and Europe due to attacks by the Yemeni Houthi group in the Red Sea.

Mitsui OSK Lines and Nippon Yusen, Japan’s largest shipping companies, also said their ships with ties to Israel were avoiding the Red Sea area. Both companies said they were monitoring the situation.

Shipping giants including Hapag Lloyd and Danish shipowner Maersk earlier this month stopped using Red Sea and Suez Canal routes after the Houthis began targeting ships, disrupting world trade.

Freight companies therefore redirected ships to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to avoid attacks. They also charged customers additional fees and extended shipping times.

However, Maersk now plans to route almost all container ships traveling between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal and divert only a small portion around Africa, an analysis showed on Thursday detailed schedule of the group produced by Reuters.

French company CMA CGM, one of the companies that introduced ship rerouting surcharges, said on Tuesday it was considering also increasing the number of ships transiting the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal is used by around a third of the world’s cargo and re-routing ships around the southern tip of Africa is expected to cost up to a million dollars (904.98 million euros) in additional fuel for each round trip between Asia and Northern Europe.

(Reporting Elke Ahlswede, written by Kirsti Knolle, Bertrand Boucey and Lina Golovnya, editing by Kate Entringer)

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