Welcome to the first edition of Nautica Post — our weekly read on the container market from the team in Dubai. Each week we cover where spot rates moved, the industry stories that matter, and what is happening in Gulf and UAE trade. There has rarely been a heavier week to start with: global rates have just turned, and the Strait of Hormuz — the artery of our home market — is effectively shut.
Container rates this week
The peak season is cresting. Drewry's World Container Index fell for the first time after ten consecutive weekly increases, and the SCFI posted its first decline in eleven weeks — Drewry's own commentary notes the "strong upwards momentum" of recent months is beginning to subside.
| Index / lane | Reading | Week-on-week |
|---|---|---|
| Drewry WCI composite (16 Jul) | $4,547 / FEU | −2% |
| SCFI composite (10 Jul) | 3,184.83 pts | −4.3% |
| Shanghai–Rotterdam | $4,873 / FEU | −1% |
| Shanghai–Genoa | $6,300 / FEU | −3% |
| Shanghai–Los Angeles | $6,272 / FEU | −3% |
| Shanghai–New York | $7,879 / FEU | stable |
Carriers are working to defend the level: Drewry's tracker shows 46 blank sailings across the major east–west trades between mid-July and mid-August (a 6% cancellation rate), while the mid-July GRIs that MSC and CMA CGM targeted on Asia–Europe failed to hold. On the transpacific, the current US tariff pause expires on 24 July, and the front-loading that produced a record projected 2.47m TEU of July US imports is easing.
The Middle East is the exception — rates on Asia–Gulf lanes have sailed past their pandemic-era peaks, per the Loadstar, with war-risk surcharges of up to $1,500 per TEU and emergency surcharges reaching $3,000 per FEU on Persian Gulf cargo. Effective capacity from North Asia to the Middle East is down roughly 70% year on year.
Industry headlines
Washington snaps sanctions back on Iran. On 15 July the US Treasury revoked the oil-export licence granted under June's Islamabad Memorandum, following a week of attacks on commercial shipping. With OFAC's shadow-fleet designations continuing to name UAE-based intermediaries, compliance screening on anything Iran-adjacent is back to maximum.
Hapag-Lloyd's $4.2bn takeover of ZIM stays on track. ZIM reaffirmed on 6 July that the February deal is progressing through regulatory review toward a late-2026 close. The combination would create a ~3m-TEU world number five — and could re-network ZIM's Gulf and ISC services into Gemini.
CMA CGM buys FedEx Supply Chain for $1.4bn. The 1 July deal nearly triples CEVA's North American contract-logistics footprint. Carriers keep verticalising into logistics — a trend every independent forwarder and NVOCC is watching.
Typhoon Bavi shut Shanghai and Ningbo. Terminals closed over the 12–13 July weekend with roughly 2m TEU of capacity delayed; expect bunched sailings — including into Gulf and Red Sea services — through late July and August.
Gulf & UAE trade
The strait dominated everything this week. On 11–12 July the IRGC attacked the 7,000-TEU feeder GFS Galaxy outbound from Jebel Ali — the first container-ship casualty of the current escalation, with the crew abandoning ship and casualties reported — and declared the Strait of Hormuz closed. By Thursday, Bloomberg counted around three transits in 24 hours against a pre-war norm of about 110. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have suspended Hormuz transits, several owners are refusing even escorted passages, and in-Gulf war-risk cover has moved to 3–5% of hull value.
The workaround is now institutional. Khor Fakkan and Fujairah, on the UAE's east coast outside the strait, have become the country's working container gateway: Gulftainer has accelerated a $2bn expansion of Khor Fakkan (weekly throughput up from 8,000 to 65,000 TEU) and launched a dedicated UAE–Umm Qasr feeder via GT Lines, DP World has bought 700 trucks for its Gulf overland network — having moved 350,000+ TEU by road since February — and is in talks for an entirely new port at Fujairah, while Dubai Customs runs a fast corridor so east-coast discharges can truck straight into Jebel Ali. For cargo routed via the Red Sea instead, be realistic about the landbridge: Jeddah and King Abdullah Port are quoting container-release delays of six to eight weeks.
The Nautica view
Plan on the east-coast corridor, not around it. Khor Fakkan/Fujairah discharge plus trucking is the dependable way into Jebel Ali and the wider Gulf right now, and space on it is the scarcest commodity in the market. Book earlier than feels comfortable, price in war-risk surcharges rather than hoping they lapse, and treat late July with extra care — the US tariff deadline and the post-typhoon sailing bunching will land on Gulf schedules at the same time. Our team is quoting daily across these routings; if your cargo plan assumes the strait reopens soon, have a second plan.
Sources: Drewry WCI (16 July), JIFFA/SCFI (10–14 July), Drewry Cancelled Sailings Tracker, Freightos, the Loadstar, Bloomberg (16 July), CNN, US Treasury/OFAC, ZIM investor relations, gCaptain, Lloyd's List, the National, Container News, AGBI.