Arab Finance: The Suez Canal witnessed the first transit by Cosco Shipping Lines since tensions in the Red Sea and Bab El-Mandeb, announced Ossama Rabiee, Chairman and Managing Director of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
The OOCL Portugal vessel was sailing from Belgium to China. It is around 400 meters long, with a beam of 61.3 meters, a gross tonnage of 247,000 tons, and a capacity of up to 24,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
OOCL Portugal operates on the NEU2 maritime service, operated by the Ocean Alliance, which directly connects major ports along the Far East-Northwest Europe trade route.
Rabiee commented on this significant development, noting that the Suez Canal has succeeded in restoring several maritime services operated by major global shipping lines, including CMA CGM, Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, and Cosco, on the Europe-Asia trade route. He said the return of these services underscores the canal’s strategic role as a key link between East and West.
SCA data showed that the net tonnage of container vessels transiting the canal rose 54.2% to around 72.1 million tons during January-August 2026, compared with 46.7 million tons in the same period of 2025.
