Red Sea shipping at half capacity

The International Monetary Fund said on April 29 that ship transits through the Bab el-Mandeb strait remain at roughly half their pre-attack level, more than two years after attacks in the Red Sea began. The fund said the disruption has persisted even as shippers adjusted routes, with many vessels continuing to sail around Africa instead of using the Suez Canal. The IMF tied the shipping disruption to wider strains on trade and transport in its latest analysis of the global economy. On May 18, Ukrainian authorities separately reported that Russian drones hit two civilian vessels approaching ports in the Odesa region, including a Chinese-owned cargo ship. ### How much Red Sea traffic is still missing? The IMF said on April 29 that transits through the Bab el-Mandeb strait between Yemen and Djibouti remain “roughly half” their pre-attack level. The statement appeared in the fund’s Chart of the Week blog, which said attacks on shipping that began in 2023 forced many vessels to reroute around Africa rather than use the Suez Canal. PortWatch, the IMF’s maritime monitoring platform, says it uses real-time data sourced from the U.N. Global Platform and tracks 95,000 ships daily across 2,093 ports and chokepoints. The platform is designed to monitor disruptions to maritime trade flows and publish trade and port activity data. ### What is the IMF saying about the broader economic effect? The IMF said on April 29 that shipping and air disruptions are damaging transport corridors critical for global energy and goods. (imf.org) The fund said in its April 2026 World Economic Outlook that the disruptions slow trade, raise costs along supply chains and hit tourism-dependent and import-reliant economies hardest. (portwatch.imf.org) The IMF also said consumers feel the effect through higher prices on food and essentials, with lower-income households bearing the largest share. The fund added that even if an enduring peace is reached, there may be no “neat and clean return” to previous transport patterns. ### Why has the disruption lasted so long? (imf.org) Red Sea attacks that began in 2023 pushed carriers to divert vessels away from the Suez route and around the Cape of Good Hope, according to the IMF. The fund said on April 29 that, more than two years later, traffic through Bab el-Mandeb remains depressed and that the future of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and regional air routes remains uncertain. (imf.org) The IMF said a slow recovery in Hormuz transits and regional flights, if it follows the Bab el-Mandeb pattern, would keep weighing on growth after fighting stops. That assessment was the fund’s description of the risk in its April 29 analysis. ### What happened off Odesa on May 18? Ukraine’s seaports authority said on May 18 that drone strikes hit two civilian vessels heading to ports in the Odesa region, one under the Marshall Islands flag and another under the Guinea-Bissau flag. (imf.org) Reports published by outlets carrying Reuters and AP material said one of the ships was the Chinese-owned cargo vessel KSL Deyang. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post that “one of the UAVs hit a vessel owned by China,” according to reports published on May 18. Ukrainian navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said none of the Chinese crew was injured and the vessel continued toward port after the strike, according to the same reports. (aljazeera.com) ### Why does a Black Sea strike matter in a shipping story centered on the Red Sea? The Odesa attack involved a different corridor, but it underscored that commercial shipping remains exposed in more than one conflict zone on May 18. The IMF said in its April 29 analysis that global transport networks are facing overlapping disruptions in shipping and aviation, and it linked those disruptions to slower trade and higher costs. (aljazeera.com) The IMF’s framing was that transport shocks are no longer confined to a single route. Its PortWatch platform and World Economic Outlook are the fund’s public tools for tracking those disruptions and their trade effects. ### What should readers watch next? The IMF said on April 29 that the future of Strait of Hormuz transits and regional air traffic remains unknown. The fund’s next public updates on maritime disruptions are available through PortWatch, which posts real-time shipping data and trade indicators. (imf.org) On May 18, Ukrainian authorities said the damaged vessels were still approaching Odesa-region ports, and further details on the ships and any response from China or Russia were not included in the IMF material. (portwatch.imf.org) Public updates are likely to come from Ukraine’s seaports authority, the Ukrainian navy and official statements tied to Vladimir Putin’s Beijing visit. (aljazeera.com) (imf.org)