Germany's largest container shipping company, Hapag-Lloyd, has to bear higher costs due to the avoidance of the Suez Canal and imposes further surcharges on its customers.

For the 25 Hapag-Lloyd ships diverted between December 18 and 31 alone, additional costs in the double-digit million range have been incurred, a company spokesman said on Friday in response to an inquiry. There are further surcharges for customers that are directly related to the tense security situation in the Red Sea. The amount of the surcharges depends on the route. Depending on the route, there may also be delays of between one and three weeks.

Hapag-Lloyd does not see much scope to change this. "Unfortunately, there is little we can do to counteract this, at best we can sail faster, which we do in some cases, but this in turn increases fuel consumption," explained the spokesperson. On the routes from the Far East to the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and the US East Coast, there are no alternatives to rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa. With reference to the uncertain situation due to attacks by the Yemeni Huthi militia on freighters in the Red Sea, Hapag-Lloyd rerouted its ships on Tuesday for at least another week. Next Tuesday, the world's fifth-largest container shipping company will decide on how to proceed.

The Houthi rebels have declared their solidarity with the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas in the Gaza war with Israel and have repeatedly attacked ships off the coast under their control. On December 15, a Hapag-Lloyd ship was also attacked. The larger shipping company Maersk from Denmark also wants to continue to avoid the sea area in the Middle East and warned on Friday of a disruption to global supply chains.

(Report by Elke Ahlswede and Nette Nöstlinger, edited by Christian Götz. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)