CMA CGM Vessel Navigates Hormuz as Crisis Remains ‘Localized’

A CMA CGM container vessel passed through the Strait of Hormuz, marking the apparent first time a cargo ship owned by a Western ocean carrier has sailed the since the Iran war started in late February.

The Malta-flagged CMA CGM Kribi passed through the strait Thursday, according to the ship’s automatic identification system (AIS) transponder data. CMA CGM Group is a French-owned corporation.

The Kribi carries roughly 5,500 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and is part of the container shipping firm’s Midas1 network, which connects the Middle East, India and west Africa.

A report from the Journal of Commerce said CMA CGM has secured assurances from Iranian authorities guaranteeing safe passage for its 14 container ships that have been trapped in the Persian Gulf for the duration of the conflict.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has largely ceased throughout the war due to concerns about the safety of vessels traveling through the area. At least 20 attacks on ships have been recorded in the region since Feb. 28, according to data from ship tracking intelligence solution MarineTraffic.

Chinese state-owned Cosco Shipping was the first of the major ocean carriers to have vessels pass eastward through the conflict-ridden waterway since the start of the war in Iran. On Monday, two ultra-large vessels made the voyage, three days after aborting an initial attempt to pass through.

Another container vessel, the Selen, appears to be attempting to sail through the strait, but the ship’s transponder has not listed its position since Thursday. The ship had already tried to make the voyage in March before being turned back by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Six ships transited the Hormuz strait on Thursday, according to MarineTraffic.

“Traffic was split between one sanctioned vessel, two shadow vessels and three non-sanctioned, non-shadow vessels, suggesting that mainstream participation continues but that higher-risk segments still account for a meaningful share of movements through the strait,” said Ana Subasic, trade risk analyst at MarineTraffic in a Friday morning update.

The future of the Strait of Hormuz remains in limbo as the military offensive continues, with President Donald Trump saying in a Truth Social post Friday morning that the U.S. could “easily” open the oil conduit “with a little more time.”

The statement followed the president’s prior declarations in a Wednesday night address that other countries should “take the lead” in protecting the strait.

Meanwhile, the IRGC has reportedly sought to assert its stranglehold over the channel by instilling a “tool booth” system for ships to pass through.

Iran is drafting a protocol with Oman to oversee maritime transit through the Strait of Hormuz, Kazem Gharibabadi, deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, told state news agency IRNA Thursday.

The de facto closure’s effects on a global scale have been mostly muted for container shipping, aside from the freight rate increases caused by the spike in oil prices. But even those concerns are appearing to be constrained to a regional level.

After Drewry’s World Container Index (WCI) shot up 20 percent in the four-week stretch to March 26, reaching $2,279 per 40-foot container, the most recent week-to-week data remained largely unchanged. The average sits at $2,287 per container as of Thursday.

Lars Jensen, CEO of container shipping consultancy Vespucci Maritime, called the WCI changes “only very marginal” in a LinkedIn post, saying that is shows “the Hormuz crisis is a localized problem more than it is a global problem when specifically looking at container freight rates.”

Shippers “should not panic,” said Philip Damas, head of the supply chain advisors practice at Drewry. Damas noted that any increase in ocean rates on non-Middle East-connected routes “will be manageable.”

With carriers continuing to push for rate increases, Drewry expects spot rates across the board to increase further in the coming weeks.

“In Asia, fuel supplies in key hubs like Singapore and China are starting to tighten, prompting carriers to adopt operational measures such as slow steaming, alternative refueling strategies and emergency fuel surcharges to manage costs,” said Drewry in a Thursday morning update. “These measures are expected to keep freight rates elevated in the short term.”

On Wednesday, carriers like Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd tacked on more charges out of India to Europe to kick off the month. The trade lane from the Indian subcontinent to Europe has been one of the most directly impacted by the Hormuz shipping slowdown, with ports across South and Southeast Asia seeing more traffic.

For vessels out of India and Pakistan to European ports like Antwerp in Belgium and Valencia in Spain, MSC added $1,000 in charges per container, pushing overall rates as high as $3,550. Hapag-Lloyd is also imposing its own $1,000 surcharge for all containers on the route.

At Maersk, prior established emergency contingency surcharges increased again by $200. As an example, a TEU traveling from northwest India and Pakistan to Northern Europe now has a $700 surcharge, up from the $500 fee levied throughout late March.

The India-to-Europe route has historically been heavily exposed to Middle East hostilities, as ships on the route primarily traveled through the Suez Canal prior to the Red Sea crisis that began in late 2023 when Yemen’s Houthis began attacking commercial shipping through the waterway.

Vessels on the trade lane have largely stuck to sailing around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, which lengthens a voyage by 10-to-14 days and costs thousands of dollars more per voyage in fuel.