Disruption Scenario

What happens if the Suez Canal & SUMED closes?

Closing Suez Canal & SUMED halts 9 Mb/d, which the available bypass capacity (9 Mb/d) can nominally absorb in full — at the cost of distance rather than volume.

Chokepoint detail →Open on the map →

Mb/d halted (full closure)

Mb/d bypass capacity

Mb/d displaced (0%)

Model the closure

100% halted

OpenPartialFull closure

Mb/d halted

Mb/d bypass

Mb/d displaced · 0%

Bypass routes

Cape of Good Hopesea+9 Mb/d
No throughput limit, but ~9 extra days each way — which ties up tonnage and tightens the freight market well before it tightens supply.

Sea reroute adds roughly 9 days each way — tonnage, not throughput, is the first constraint.

The sea reroute has no throughput limit, so the shortfall reads as zero — but it consumes tonnage. Expect freight rates, not volumes, to absorb the shock first.

Refining capacity exposed

The exposed importing countries hold 13,531 kb/d of refining capacity across 58 refineries. This is capacity that sits in exposed countries — not a claim about which refineries buy crude through this route, which is sourcing data the atlas does not hold.

Indicative planning arithmetic over published transit volumes and nameplate bypass capacity. It is not a supply forecast: it models neither price response, demand destruction, inventory release, spare production capacity, nor how quickly tonnage can physically reposition. Nameplate capacity is consistently higher than day-one deliverable capacity.