经济学人 ||红海航运船只的遇袭对全球贸易构成了打击

Until the Suez Canal opened in 1869, merchant ships in the Red Sea mostly carried coffee, spices and slaves. The waterway changed everything. So far in 2023 around 24,000 vessels have plied the passage, accounting for some 10% of global seaborne trade by volume, according to Clarksons, a shipbroker. That includes 20% of the world’s container traffic, nearly 10% of seaborne oil and 8% of liquefied natural gas.

在1869年苏伊士运河开通之前，红海的商船主要运载咖啡、香料和奴隶。这条水道改变了一切。根据船舶经纪公司Clarksons的数据，到2023年为止，大约有24,000艘船只航行通过这条通道，占全球海上贸易总量的约10%。其中包括世界20%的集装箱流量，近10%的海运石油和8%的液化天然气。

So missile and drone attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen on ships passing through the narrow strait of Bab al-Mandab, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, apparently in support of Palestinians in Gaza, look like the latest blow to the shipping industry—and to its customers. It has struck just as both groups try to return to normality after the upheavals of the pandemic and, more recently, troubles which include a drought that has restricted large vessels from passing through the Panama Canal for several months.

因此，也门胡塞武装分子对通过狭窄的曼德海峡（连接红海和亚丁湾）的船只发动的导弹和无人机袭击，显然是对航运业的最新打击，这些袭击显然是为了支持加沙的巴勒斯坦人。在疫情动荡之后，以及最近包括干旱在内的麻烦，这些麻烦导致大型船只几个月无法通过巴拿马运河，正当航运业及其客户试图恢复正常时，这次袭击发生了。

A dozen Houthi attacks in recent weeks and four more on December 18th pose an unacceptable danger to shipping. Container firms accounting for some 95% of the capacity that usually crosses Suez, including giants like Swiss-based msc and Denmark’s Maersk, have suspended services in the area. A few energy firms, such as bp and Equinor, have also temporarily stopped their ships from using the canal. As when the route was disrupted in 2021 after Ever Given, a giant container ship, ran aground and blocked the canal for six days, shipping companies are already rerouting vessels around Africa. This will extend journeys from around 31 to 40 days between Asia and Northern Europe, reckons Clarksons. Unless the route can safely reopen, delays and the inevitable disruption at ports as vessels arrive out of schedule will create disorder in the coming months.

近几周十几次胡塞袭击和12月18日的四次袭击对航运构成了无法接受的危险。一些占通常穿越苏伊士运河容量约95%的集装箱公司，包括瑞士的msc和丹麦的马士基，已经暂停了该地区的服务。一些能源公司，如bp和Equinor，也临时停止了他们的船只使用运河。就像2021年由于“长赐”号，一艘巨型集装箱船搁浅并堵塞运河六天后的路线中断一样，航运公司已经开始绕过非洲重新安排船只。Clarksons估计，这将使从亚洲到北欧的航行时间从大约31天延长到40天。除非这条路线能够安全重新开放，否则延迟和港口不可避免的混乱，因为船只不按计划到达，将在未来几个月内造成混乱。

Still, this Suez crisis will not “put a cork in global trade”, says Lars Jensen of Vespucci Maritime, a consultancy. The reason for the cautious optimism has to do with shipping’s remorseless cyclicality. In contrast to the Ever Given fiasco, supply chains are not currently under immense strain. Back then cuts to capacity coupled with a surge in spending by locked-down consumers had sent shipping rates surging to astronomical levels. A global index from Drewry, another consultancy, hit over $10,000 per standard container. On some routes, spot rates surpassed $20,000. That helped push shipping firms’ combined net profits in 2022 to $215bn, according to the John McCown Container Report, an industry compendium, compared with a cumulative loss of $8.5bn in 2016-19.

然而，这次苏伊士运河危机不会“阻塞全球贸易”，Vespucci Maritime的Lars Jensen说，这家公司是一家咨询公司。对此持谨慎乐观态度的原因与航运业无情的周期性有关。与“长赐”号事件相反，供应链目前并未承受巨大压力。当时，因封锁而消费激增导致运力削减，航运费率飙升至天文数字。Drewry的一个全球指数超过了每标准集装箱10000美元。在某些路线上，现货价格超过了20000美元。这帮助推动了航运公司2022年的净利润达到2150亿美元，根据John McCown Container Report，这是一个行业综述，与2016-2019年的累计亏损85亿美元相比。

The shipping firms’ usual response to such price signals is to order new vessels. Those are starting to arrive. Though demand has remained flat over the past year or two, the global fleet’s capacity will swell by 9% this year and another 11% in 2024, according to ing, a bank. Already, the industry’s profits may have plunged by 80% in 2023. With capacity to spare, running longer routes should not cause the disruption seen at the height of covid-19. By mid-December Drewry’s index was becalmed at $1,500 or so (see chart). Rates could double as a result of the Red Sea turmoil, reckons Peter Sand at Xeneta, a freight-data firm. But they will probably stay well below their pandemic peaks—and so will shipping companies’ profits.

航运公司通常对此类价格信号的反应是订购新船。这些新船开始到达。尽管过去一两年需求一直保持平稳，但据ing银行估计，今年全球船队的运力将增加9％，2024年将再增加11％。到2023年，行业的利润可能已经下降了80％。由于有足够的运力，运行较长的路线不应该造成covid-19高峰时期所见的混乱。到12月中旬，Drewry的指数平静在大约1500美元左右（见图表）。Xeneta的Peter Sand认为，由于红海动荡，费率可能翻倍。但它们可能仍将远低于疫情高峰时期的水平，航运公司的利润也是如此。

来源：七点外刊

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