Circumnavigation of Africa is an inconvenience, but can it not also be an opportunity?
 One big difference in the closure of the Suez Canal today and its closure 55 years ago in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War is the very different cargo involved.
In the era that brought us the super-tanker, the Cape route of yesteryear brought the gas-guzzling world what it craved most - oil.
Today, oil is just one of the commodities that takes the Cape route, having been denied access to the Suez Canal, the Med and the Northern Range Ports from Le Havre to Hamburg.
Back then there wasn't much trade of any sort - not compared to today. The transpacific trade lane was in its infancy. Japanese cars, cameras and photo copiers were just beginning to be sold in North America. The action was largely transatlantic.
Ships were smaller too. In today's metrics, the typical ocean-going freighter was no more than 500 TEU. The typical containership today is 10,000 TEU with the latest running over 24,000 TEU.
Another change from the world of 1967 is in Africa itself. Back then there was South Africa and Rhodesia, which grew wealthy with citrus fruit, grain, copper, gold and diamonds. Kenya also had farm produce, coffee and tea. The Congo had industrial diamonds, cobalt and copper.
From Namibia came diamonds, uranium, zinc and copper and from Angola comes crude oil, diamonds, coffee, sisal and fish. And from Nigeria comes crude oil and a full range of petroleum products. And from Ghana come gems and precious metals and cocoa, from which comes chocolate. The Cote d'Ivoire, the world's top supplier of cashew nuts and chocolate-bearing cocoa beans. And finally Morocco that exports fertilizers, vehicles
electrical machinery and equipment, clothing and accessories.
Should the Suez crisis continue unabated, then the Cape route might well develop into a trade in its own right and have Africa share more in the rising wealth of the world or at least share less of its poverty. With the Russo-Ukrainian war less of a slam dunk than it was thought to be, the only ones keen to expand it are the bureaucrats and arms dealers.
Still, no one wants to take on the Houthis. To do that decisively, one would have to have take an army with all the fixings from the coast to Yemen's capital, Houthi-held Sana'a (pop 4 million) 260 miles over rocky mountainous terrain that is hard to attack and easy to defend. That is, if one adheres to current rules of engagement to minimize civilan casualties.
While it is embarrassing for the civilised world to be denied use of the world's biggest waterway by so called "rebels", rebels who hold the capital of 4 million people and have done so for a decade are like few rebels known to history. China is the state most damaged by the situation, because its goods are being blocked from European sales. While Beijing might find a test run over hundreds of miles of barren mountainous terrain instructive for its unblooded People's Liberation Army, the lesson learnt would be a costly. Anti-Houthi naval assets can fire anti-missile missiles at incoming strikes, but are powerless offensively being unable to strike truck-mounted launch sites that skedaddle seconds after rockets are fired.
But things aren't that bad. Particularly, now when things are going so well financially. Carriers are rolling in profits generated by a panicky Covid-scared world. They have ordered new and bigger ships. So there could hardly be a better time to cope with a longer sea route that imposes the circumnavigation of Africa. While it is a problem on one level it is also a portal of discovery. One that was not available to the tankers of yesteryear, hastening as they were in the '60s and '70s to thirsty oil markets of America and Europe.
Another noteworthy aspect of the two historic continental circumnavigations is the difference in affluence of the Africans along the way.
In both cases, ships may be passing the poorest people in the world. But what one is inclined to overlook is that the poorest of yesteryear are a lot richer today. Sub Saharan Africa per capita GDP was US$188 in 1970 against $1,590 in 2022.
So while Africa's exports may enjoy established separate supply chains, the current situation shows that today's African has money to spend on cheap Asian imports, and their uncongested ports such as Durban, Cape Town, Walvis Bay, Lagos and Tema are now equipped with gantry cranes, RPGs and reach stackers and can provide the wayport services recently provided by Med ports before Houthis came to spoil everything.
Under the old regime, the bulk of a ship's containerised cargo transiting the Suez may be bound for Europe's Northern Range ports, Le Havre to Hamburg, including Southampton and Felixstowe. But there will be a portion of a ship's cargo that is bound for ports from Sao Paulo in Brazil to Montreal in Canada - and many ports in between. Thus, cargo destined for more obscure destinations can be syphoned off at wayports and reloaded on smaller ships which can access shallower ports with still consumer rich hinterlands.
Montreal and Toronto may be canoe ports in terms of the size of ships they can berth, but they still service the two major cities of a G7 country.
Making a virtue out of necessity, these African wayports can serve just as well as
Damietta, Malta, Tangiers did, now that they were put out of action because of war risk in the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf.
Africa is increasingly equipped to handle larger volumes of cargo. Ports like Durban in South Africa, Mombasa in Kenya, and Tanger-Med in Morocco are becoming pivotal in the global supply chain. These ports have made significant investments in infrastructure, including deeper berths and enhanced cargo handling capabilities, making them more competitive on the international stage.
So while these African ports may shine in wayporting roles, they also serve a number among the consumer-rich hinterlands that the shipping world would be foolish to ignore. |
