Japan’s container conglomerate Ocean Network Express has decided to suspend navigation away from the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the wake of escalating security threats, rerouting its ships via the Cape of Good Hope instead or temporarily pausing voyages, the company said in late Dec. 19.
“Effective immediately, as a temporary safety measure, ONE will reroute our vessels away from the Suez Canal and the Red Sea,” ONE said in a statement.
“Instead, we will either navigate our vessels around the Cape of Good Hope or temporarily pause their journey and reposition them in a safe location.”
The Singapore-based container shipping arm of Japan’s NYK Line, Mitsui OSK Lines, and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line) said it will continue closely monitoring the situation and reinstate services through the Suez Canal when the situation normalizes.
ONE has a fleet of 205 ships, including 35 super-large ships like the world’s largest 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit container ships, in a service network covering over 120 countries.
The move by ONE comes as A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Dec. 19 that it was rerouting its ships via the longer Cape of Good Hope route to avoid the risk of attacks in the Red Sea region. Previously, Maersk had temporarily suspended sailings through the Bab al-Mandab Strait due to a spate of attacks on ships by Yemen-based Houthi militants.
As of Dec. 18, Maersk said it had about 20 ships that have paused transits of which half were waiting East of the Gulf of Aden and the rest were South of Suez in the Red Sea or North of Suez in the Mediterranean Sea.
US-led naval task force:
A US-led naval task force will be deployed around the Red Sea to deter further maritime attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen that have put energy traders on notice and prompted major oil and shipping firms to avoid the critical waterway linking European and Asian markets.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who convened a summit with regional leaders late Dec. 18, said the US would be joined by the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain in the defense initiative named “Operation Prosperity Guardian.”
Japan’s Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara attended Dec. 19 a virtual meeting on Red Sea Maritime Security hosted by the US Department of Defense, the Japanese defense ministry said in a statement.
“Minister Kihara stated that the Japan Ministry of Defense and Self-Defense Forces will continue to closely cooperate with relevant countries to secure stable use of sea lanes in the Middle East and ensure peace and stability in the international community,” the ministry said.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense and SDF will continue to collaborate with the US and like-minded countries to ensure maritime security as well as peace and stability in the international community, it said.
Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force has been in operation in the Gulf of Aden offshore Somalia since 2009 to protect ships with Japanese interests in the wake of piracy attacks.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News
