For decades, the commercial importance of the Red Sea rested on a simple calculation: it offered the shortest maritime route between Asia and Europe. 

Ships leaving the Indian Ocean could pass through Bab el-Mandeb, continue north through the Red Sea and enter the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. The route saved time, reduced fuel costs, and allowed companies to organize production around predictable delivery schedules. 

But, that calculation is no longer as straightforward as it once was. 

Houthi attacks, tension around the Strait of Hormuz, rising insurance costs and the return of piracy to the Gulf of Aden are forcing governments and companies to reconsider how much dependence they can place on a few narrow waterways. 

The Red Sea remains essential to global commerce, but confidence in its reliability has weakened. Commercial powers are responding by shifting cargo between ports, rerouting tankers, using pipelines and ship-to-ship transfers, increasing inventories and asking governments to absorb risks that private insurers no longer want to carry. 

The world is not abandoning the Red Sea. It is building alternative ways to operate when the Red Sea becomes unsafe. 

For Somaliland, this changing commercial map creates an important opportunity. Berbera cannot replace Suez or allow ships to avoid Bab el-Mandeb, but it could become a secure logistics, surveillance and distribution centre on the Gulf of Aden—if Somaliland can turn its location into a dependable commercial system. 

China Moves Its Tankers Away from Danger 

China’s response offers the clearest evidence that a wider change is underway. 

Two major state-controlled companies—COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation and China Merchants Energy Shipping—have kept their large oil tankers away from both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb since late July. 

Together, the companies control more than 100 very large crude carriers, each capable of transporting around two million barrels. Before the latest crisis, they handled roughly half of China’s Middle Eastern crude imports, excluding sanctioned Iranian petroleum. 

Instead of sending these tankers directly into the Gulf, Chinese companies are increasingly collecting oil through ship-to-ship transfers near Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates and around ports in Oman. 

Reuters reported that transfers involving Chinese- and Hong Kong-owned vessels in the Gulf of Oman exceeded 600,000 barrels per day in June and July. Comparable activities were negligible during April and May. 

Around two dozen Chinese-controlled supertankers were expected to load outside the Gulf between August and mid-September. The decisions reportedly followed communications with Chinese central authorities, suggesting that this was more than a temporary commercial reaction. Reuters documented the shift on August 18. 

China is effectively separating the place where oil is produced from the place where its major tankers collect it. Smaller vessels and regional operators move the cargo toward safer waters; Chinese supertankers then take over outside of the most dangerous zone. 

The risk has not disappeared. It has been transferred to another section of the journey. 

The Rise of the Maritime Relay 

The traditional energy route involved a tanker loading at a Gulf terminal and sailing directly to a refinery in Asia or Europe. The emerging system looks more like a relay. 

Oil may travel through a pipeline, load aboard a smaller tanker, move to a transfer point and then continue aboard a much larger vessel. 

Fujairah benefits because it lies outside of Hormuz. Ports in Oman offer a similar advantage. On the other side of the region, Saudi crude can move from the Red Sea through Egypt’s SUMED pipeline and reach the Mediterranean terminal at Sidi Kerir. 

These facilities provide alternative outlets when ordinary shipping routes become too dangerous or expensive. 

The new commercial priority is no longer finding only the shortest route. It is ensuring that a shipment has several possible routes and transfer points. Governments and companies are willing to accept higher costs in exchange for reducing their dependence on a single chokepoint. 

Japan Pays More to Keep the Oil Moving 

Japan is........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)