MSC Opens European Workaround to Hormuz Closure With New Red Sea Service

MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company has launched a dedicated Europe-Red Sea-Middle East express service designed to keep cargo moving between European exporters and Gulf customers as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut to commercial traffic.

The world's largest container carrier, headquartered in Geneva, will sail its first vessel from Antwerp on 10 May, with a single-direction rotation calling at Gdansk, Klaipeda, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Valencia, Barcelona and Gioia Tauro before transiting the Suez Canal to Abu Kir, King Abdullah Port, Jeddah and Aqaba. MSC will deploy ships of 14,000 to 16,000 TEU on the loop, slotting them in and out of its wider network.

From King Abdullah Port, MSC will move boxes overland to Dammam on Saudi Arabia's east coast, then onward by feeder to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Iraq and Kuwait. The multimodal workaround mirrors moves already made by Germany's Hapag-Lloyd and Denmark's Maersk, both of which set up land-based corridors through Saudi Arabia and Oman in March.

The Hormuz blockade, in place since the combined US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, has choked roughly a fifth of global oil and gas flows and forced container lines into longer, costlier alternatives. For European shippers, the disruption has compounded a fuel squeeze that has already pushed bunker prices sharply higher and prompted carriers to delay 2026-27 service contract negotiations.

By stitching together its Baltic, North Sea and Mediterranean feeder networks into a single express loop, MSC is positioning itself to capture European industrial cargo that would otherwise be stranded, while underscoring how quickly the continent's supply chains are being rewired around an unresolved Gulf crisis.