Suez Canal: convoy transits, SCNT dues and draft limits

The Suez Canal is a lock-free sea-level ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean at Port Said with the Red Sea at Suez, operated by the Suez Canal Authority under Egyptian law, open to the vessels of every flag in war and in peace under Article I of the Convention of Constantinople of 29 October 1888, and tolled per Suez Canal Net Tonnage at rates published in Special Drawing Rights.

It runs 193.30 km from the Port Said breakwater line to the Port of Suez, and it has no locks, because mean sea level at the two ends differs by centimetres rather than metres. The consequence for a ship is the fact most often stated wrongly about the canal: there is no single maximum draft. Permissible laden draft is read off a table indexed on beam, so the answer for a given hull is a pair of numbers.

Traffic has not recovered from the Red Sea diversions. The Suez Canal Authority recorded 12,758 transits of 522.1 million net tons in 2025, against 26,434 transits of 1,568.3 million net tons in 2023, and revenue of USD 4.67 billion in the fiscal year to 30 June 2026 against the record USD 9.4 billion of the 2022 to 2023 fiscal year. In the four weeks to 20 August 2026 the canal handled 1,090 transits, its best four-week total since 2024 and still about 41 percent below the pre-crisis level.

Route, geometry and why the canal has no locks

The canal crosses four water bodies between two seas, and it needs no lock at any of them because the Mediterranean and the Red Sea stand at almost the same mean level. That single fact sets the whole constraint structure: the limits at Suez are dredged depth, channel width and the interaction between a hull and a confined prismatic section, not the dimensions of a chamber.

Alignment, Port Said to Suez

The canal runs from Port Said on the Mediterranean south through Lake Manzala, past El Qantara, through Lake Timsah at Ismailia, then through the Great Bitter Lake and the Small Bitter Lakes, and out to the Gulf of Suez at the Port of Suez. The Suez Canal Authority measures the length as 193.30 km, taken from the Port Said breakwater line to the Port of Suez and including both approach channels.

The natural depressions did most of the route selection. Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes gave the alignment ready-made deep sections at close to sea level, which is why the nineteenth-century engineering problem was a cut through sand rather than a staircase of locks. Compare that with the Panama Canal, where a continental divide and a freshwater lake make lockage and a water budget the governing constraints, or the Kiel Canal , which uses locks to manage a tidal difference the Suez alignment does not have.

Channel profile and depth

Maximum water depth is 24 m, achieved at the 2010 development stage. Channel width at the 11 m contour runs 205 m to 225 m depending on the section, and the Authority gives the water-surface width as 313 m with a navigable channel of 200 m to 210 m. Cross-sectional area is 4,800 m2 or 5,200 m2 by section, against 304 m2 at the 1869 opening.

Those numbers matter operationally because of blockage ratio, the fraction of the channel cross-section a hull occupies. A large container ship at operating draft fills a substantial part of a 4,800 m2 section, and the resulting acceleration of water around the hull drives both squat and bank effect. That is the mechanism behind most canal handling problems and it has no analogue in open water, which is why the Authority regulates speed rather than trusting under-keel clearance alone.

The New Suez Canal of 2015

The 2015 programme built a new parallel waterway of 35 km between km 60 and km 95, 24 m deep and 317 m wide at water level, and deepened and widened 37 km of existing bypasses: 27 km at the Great Bitter Lakes and 10 km at Ballah, both to 24 m for a 66 ft draft. Total project length was 72 km. It was inaugurated on 6 August 2015 after a stated twelve-month construction period.

The scale of the earthworks is on the record. Dry excavation ran to 258.8 million m3 at about EGP 4 billion, dredging to about 250 million m3 at about EGP 15 billion, and revetments along 100 km at about EGP 500 million, using 45 dredgers and 20 sedimentation basins. The first consortium dredger, Al-Marifaa, started on 5 November 2014; peak daily output reached 1.73 million m3 on 31 May 2015. The Authority states the cost in Egyptian pounds, so the USD 8.4 billion total in wide circulation is a third-party conversion rather than an Authority figure.

What the project changed was throughput, not size. It raised the number of ships the canal can move in a day and cut the wait at each end. It did not raise the maximum ship the canal can take, and the Authority’s stated target of 97 vessels per day by 2023 has never been reached: the record stands at 107 in one day, and the 2023 daily average was 72.4.

The southern sector project, completed 2025

The grounding of the Ever Given in March 2021 closed a reach that had no second lane, and the Authority responded with a southern sector programme it announced complete on 3 February 2025. It widened the channel 40 m eastward and deepened it from 66 ft to 72 ft between km 132 and km 162, a 30 km reach, and built a new 10 km second lane between km 122 and km 132 in the Small Bitter Lakes area.

The result extended the continuous two-way section from 72 km to 82 km, with a stated added capacity of 6 to 8 vessels per day and a stated efficiency gain of 28 percent, at a cost of about EGP 9 billion funded in Egyptian pounds. New charts were approved by the Egyptian Navy Hydrographic Department and the UK Hydrographic Office and carried into ECDIS. Note the unit: 72 ft is a permissible draft of 21.95 m, not a water depth, and maximum water depth remains 24 m.

The Great Bitter Lake

The Great Bitter Lake sits near the midpoint and does three jobs. It is a passing and holding area, an inspection and casualty anchorage, and the assembly point for an early group entering ahead of a convoy’s stated start time. Anchorage selection inside the lake is by draft band, and a ship held for a tonnage audit or a technical inspection is normally held here rather than in the channel.

Maximum vessel dimensions: the beam against draft envelope

The Suez Canal does not publish a single maximum draft. Article 52 D of the Rules of Navigation, December 2020 Edition, routes maximum draft to two tables indexed on beam, and Article 53 adds that the laden figure must not exceed the Tropical Load Line. So the answer to whether a ship can transit is a pair of numbers read off a table, and the ship’s own load line certificate decides which mark applies.

How to read Table No. 1 and Table No. 2

Table No. 1 covers vessels in ballast in either direction and has one row: a beam up to 254 ft 3 in at a recommended draft of 40 ft or less. Table No. 2 covers loaded vessels in both directions and is graduated in one-inch draft steps, so any intermediate row can be read directly. The anchor points are these.

Table reduced from Tables No. 1 and No. 2 of the Suez Canal Authority Rules of Navigation, December 2020 Edition, printed pages 52 to 57. Laden drafts are stated against the Tropical Load Line under Article 53.

Two conditions sit under the table. A vessel transiting at a draft over 50 ft up to 66 ft must complete a successful sea trial before entering at Suez or Port Said Roads on its first passage, and a sister ship does not inherit that authorization. Both come from the footnotes to Article 53, and both are easy to miss when a newbuilding is first fixed on a Suez rotation.

Beam, length and air draft

Maximum beam is 254 ft 3 in (77.50 m) under Article 52 B, and it is available laden, at 40 ft draft. That correction matters, because the August 2015 edition of the Rules qualified the beam figure as applying to ballast transiting and the December 2020 edition does not, so anyone working from the older wording will exclude ships the canal now takes. Above 210 ft of beam a ship may transit only in a beam wind not exceeding 10 knots, and above 254 ft 3 in transit is by special request.

Maximum length overall is 400 m under Article 52 A, with longer vessels by special arrangement. Maximum air draft is 68 m above Highest High Water Level under Article 52 C, and that published figure, not the physical clearance of the bridge crossing the canal, is what a transit plan works to.

Suezmax, and what the name means

Suezmax is a market convention rather than an Authority class. The Suez Canal Authority publishes no Suezmax definition, and the term describes the largest crude tanker that can transit laden, which in practice runs about 274 m to 285 m in length overall, 48 m to 50 m in beam, around 16 m laden draft and 120,000 to 160,000 dwt. That places it between Aframax and VLCC in the tanker size classes .

The class has moved with the canal. Unlike Panamax and NeoPanamax , which are fixed by lock chambers and change only when a new lock is built, the Suez envelope moves whenever the Authority completes a dredging programme, which is why the deadweight band quoted for Suezmax has drifted upward over four decades and why sources disagree about it.

Which ships cannot transit laden

A fully laden VLCC cannot. At roughly 20 m draft a ship would need a beam under 49.99 m, and VLCC beams run wider, so the options are a part-laden transit at a draft the beam permits, a discharge into the SUMED pipeline , or the Cape of Good Hope route . That is why the canal and the pipeline are treated as one system for crude and why the oil-flow statistics for the corridor are published as a combined series.

Container ships are the opposite case. The largest classes in service transit routinely: the Authority publicised 2026 transits by CMA CGM Saint Germain, Notre Dame and Vendome, each of about 24,000 TEU. Nothing in the container ship size classes is excluded by Suez geometry, which is the structural reason the canal matters more to the liner trades than to crude. The same is broadly true across the bulk carrier size classes , where draft rather than beam is the usual binding limit.

Transit dues: Suez Canal Net Tonnage and the SDR tariff

Suez dues are levied per Suez Canal Net Ton at rates published in Special Drawing Rights, so a toll changes both when the Authority issues a circular and when the SDR basket moves. Article 92 A of the Rules of Navigation states the basis:

The tonnage on which all dues and surcharges to be paid by vessels … is the net tonnage resulting from the system of measurement laid down by the International Commission held at Constantinople in 1873, and duly entered on the special certificates issued by the competent authorities in each country.

Suez Canal Net Tonnage against ITC-69

Suez Canal Net Tonnage descends from the Moorsom volumetric system as adapted by the 1873 Constantinople commission and revised since. It is a net tonnage in the classical sense, gross volume less crew, navigation and propulsion spaces, with Suez-specific deductions that match no national code. The 1969 Tonnage Convention replaced volumetric deduction with logarithmic formulae for gross tonnage and net tonnage , and the Authority never adopted it for dues.

A transiting ship therefore carries two tonnage identities: the International Tonnage Certificate figures used for almost every other regulatory purpose, and the Suez Canal Net Tonnage recorded on a separate Suez Canal Special Tonnage Certificate . No published formula converts one into the other, and a voyage estimate built by assuming a ratio will be wrong by a material margin. The parallel is the Panama Canal Universal Measurement System , which differs in that PC/UMS descends from the 1969 Convention with Panama Canal Authority variations rather than standing outside it. The general subject is treated in tonnage measurement .

A classification society issues the Special Tonnage Certificate, and the Authority audits it. Tonnage and Dues Auditors board at Port Said, the Bitter Lakes, Suez and within canal waters, check the certificate against the capacity and general arrangement plans and against the ship as built, and may amend the recorded tonnage. Where no valid certificate is produced, dues are levied provisionally on Suez Canal Gross Tonnage, which is the higher figure, and re-based on a later transit.

The tariff in force

The base schedule is the Transit Dues Rates Schedules applicable from 15 January 2024, issued under Circular 7/2023. Article One of that circular raised normal dues by 15 percent for crude and product tankers, LPG, LNG, chemical and other liquid bulk tankers, containerships, vehicle carriers, cruise ships and special floating units, and by 5 percent for dry bulk, general cargo, ro-ro and other vessels. No later base-rate change has been issued as at 1 September 2026.

Rates are regressive across seven tonnage tiers, or eight for containerships, and split laden and ballast. The first tier of the schedule in force runs as follows, in SDR per Suez Canal Net Ton, with the superseded 1 January 2023 figures in brackets.

Table reduced from the Suez Canal Authority Transit Dues Rates Schedules applicable from 15 January 2024, issued under Circular 7/2023, with the schedule applicable from 1 January 2023 under Circular 14/2022 in brackets.

Dues are settled in one of ten currencies at the IMF declared rate: the US dollar, sterling, euro, yen, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona, Danish krone, Norwegian krone, Swiss franc and Chinese yuan. That is the point most often missed in a voyage estimation built weeks before the fixture: the SDR rate moves daily, so a Suez toll can change without the Authority issuing anything. Panama Canal tolls are quoted in dollars and carry no equivalent currency exposure.

Surcharges in force

A tranche of instruments issued on 7 June 2026 and effective 15 July 2026 raised surcharges across every rate class. Laden crude and product tankers pay 37 percent of normal dues and 27 percent in ballast, dry bulk pays 22 percent, LPG 32 percent, LNG 19 percent, chemical and other liquid bulk 32 percent, and general cargo, multi-purpose, heavy lift, ro-ro, special floating units and other vessels 26 percent.

Two classes are structurally different. Vehicle carriers are the only class with a directional split, at 26 percent northbound against 12 percent southbound under Periodical 24/2026. Containerships pay 12 percent under Circular 2/2026, and that surcharge is calculated on total dues including the container-tier surcharges rather than on normal dues alone, which makes it worth more than the headline percentage suggests. The Authority states in each instrument that the surcharges are temporary and may be amended or cancelled according to market conditions.

Rebates, and the rebate that was withdrawn

Circular 3/2025 granted a 15 percent rebate from 15 May 2025 to laden or ballast containerships of 130,000 Suez Canal Net Tons and above, applied automatically with no documents and worth at least USD 70,000 per qualifying transit. It was extended twice, then suspended by Periodical 3/2026 of 2 April 2026 with effect from 7 April 2026, about twelve weeks before its stated expiry, with no reason published.

Set that against Circular 2/2026 and the arithmetic is stark: a large containership moved from a 15 percent rebate to a 12 percent surcharge inside fourteen weeks. Anyone modelling a Suez rotation on a rebate assumption made in early 2026 is carrying a pricing error of roughly a quarter of the toll.

What survives is a set of trade-specific long-haul rebates, all extended to 31 December 2026 with a last permissible sailing date from the origin port of 31 December 2026. They cover dry bulk from Australia to North West Europe, from the Americas to Asia and from West Africa to the Gulf and Far East; LNG, crude and products from the US Gulf, Caribbean and Latin America to Asia; LPG and chemicals to India eastward; containerships from the Americas east coast to South and South East Asia; and vehicle carriers from the Americas to the Far East. Periodical 14/2026 also preserves the Circular 8/2023 exemption sparing North West Europe to Far East containerships the 15 percent Circular 7/2023 increase.

Ancillary charges

Three 2026 circulars changed what a transit costs outside the toll itself. Circular 1/2026, in force 15 May 2026, made mooring shore-based for all vessels including naval, provided by the Canal Mooring and Lights Company with no mooring personnel boarding, at a lump sum of USD 3,800 for vessels of 2,500 GT and above and USD 2,350 below. It also ended the practice of a Canal electrician boarding with a searchlight, requiring every vessel to supply its own compliant projector and imposing a USD 500 fine per transit for an absent or non-compliant unit from the first transit.

Circular 3/2026, in force 15 July 2026, replaced the Article 101 pilotage schedule at Port Said. A non-Egyptian ship from or to sea pays USD 201.42 up to 999 net tons, USD 967.28 at 10,000 to 19,999 net tons and USD 3,933.05 at 60,000 net tons and above, with berth-to-berth shifts from USD 85.64 to USD 1,529.32. Night services carry a 50 percent surcharge, and the schedule escalates automatically by 5 percent every 1 July from 2027.

Waste is charged whether or not it is landed. Under Circular 2/2025 as amended by Periodical 2/2026, in force 15 April 2026, solid waste collection is provided by ANTIPOLLUTION EGYPT with mandatory fees banded by Suez Canal Net Tonnage levied on every transit whether or not the service is received. Excess non-dangerous solid waste is USD 99 per cubic metre and dangerous solid waste, an optional service, is USD 1,000 per cubic metre.

Convoys, pilotage and how a transit is run

Every Suez transit runs in a scheduled convoy under compulsory Suez Canal Authority pilotage, so the operational unit is a convoy slot and an arrival window rather than a booked appointment at a lock. Article 49 of the Rules of Navigation states it plainly: a two main convoys system is applied in the Suez Canal.

Booking, notice and approach

A booking must reach the Port Offices not later than four days before transit under Article 12, stating name, date, nationality, type, draft, length overall, beam, Suez Canal Gross Tonnage, Suez Canal Net Tonnage and deadweight. A fixed-date booking carries convoy priority if the ship arrives within the limit time. Cancelling or altering inside 12 hours costs USD 1,000, or USD 3,000 for a ULCC, VLCC, LNG carrier or similar vessel, and a ship enlisted in a convoy and found not ready pays USD 5,000 in additional dues under Article 48(7).

Article 13 requires a notice of arrival 48 hours out, carrying the ship’s name, nationality and former name, both Suez tonnages, deadweight, draft and beam, whether she is transiting or stopping, the estimated time of arrival, and any dangerous cargo with quantity and IMDG Code class. Article 14 then requires a call to the port office 15 miles before the Port Said Fairway Buoy or 5 miles before Separation Zone Buoy No. 1 off Suez, on VHF channels 12, 13 and 16 at Port Said and 16 and 14 at Suez. A ship that does not call is liable to delay in joining a convoy, which is a scheduling penalty rather than a fine and usually the more expensive of the two.

Convoy composition and the crossing points

The northbound convoy starts between 0400 and 0830 at km 160 as a single group. Warships, passenger ships, car carriers, ro-ro vessels, containerships over 60,000 Suez Canal Gross Tons or at a draft over 42 ft, and ballast vessels and tankers over 60,000 SCGT lead it. LPG and LNG carriers loaded or in non-gas-free ballast, and tankers and bulk carriers at a draft over 44 ft, take the tail.

The southbound convoy starts between 0330 and 0800 in three groups. Group A leaves the Northern Anchorage Area by the Port Said Eastern Approach channel and carries containerships over 42 ft, VLCCs and ULCCs in ballast over 42 ft, and gas carriers loaded or in non-gas-free ballast. Group B leaves Port Said harbour and joins at km 17, where Group C from the Southern Anchorage Area joins by the western channel. The head-of-convoy threshold for containerships southbound is 40,000 SCGT, not the 60,000 that applies northbound.

The two convoys are timed to cross. The leading northbound ship regulates speed to meet the last southbound ship at Ballah station, km 54.770, and the leading southbound ship crosses the last northbound ship abeam Kabret station, km 120.800. Circular 7/2025 of 13 November 2025 amended Article 50(A) so that the southbound convoy joining latitude in the Port Said approach became 31 degrees 30 minutes N with effect from 15 November 2025. An early group may enter ahead of the stated start time at either end, anchor in the Great Bitter Lake, and rejoin the tail later.

Speed and transit time

Article 54 states speed in km/h rather than knots, and it sets two figures: 14 km/h (7.56 knots) for laden or non-gas-free LPG and LNG carriers and for loaded tankers and bulk carriers at a draft over 44 ft, containerships excepted, and 16 km/h (8.64 knots) for everything else. Additional dues are levied on slow-speed vessels under Article 99, and a ship whose transit speed equals the critical speed must call the port office. That last provision is a squat control, not a traffic one.

The Authority states transit time as 12 to 16 hours. Its New Suez Canal project material separately claims southbound transit cut from 18 hours to 11 hours and waiting time cut to about three hours from 8 to 11 hours, which is a project claim rather than the operational figure the Authority publishes today. Throughput has a documented ceiling: the record is 107 vessels in one day on 13 March 2023, 56 southbound and 51 northbound, against a previous record of 87 ships in September 2021.

Source: Suez Canal Authority, Planning and Research Department, Suez Canal Statistics for 2025 Compared to 2024, Table 1.

Pilotage, and where the liability actually sits

Pilotage is compulsory under Article 6(1) for every vessel whatever its tonnage, on entering, leaving, moving, changing berth or shifting on canal water or in the Port Said and Suez harbours, and exemption requires explicit Authority authorization. The Authority may assign a tug master aboard a vessel under 1,500 SCGT and a coxswain aboard a vessel under 800 SCGT instead of a pilot, but navy ships and vessels carrying dangerous cargo must have a pilot regardless of tonnage.

The liability position is the single most commercially consequential fact about a Suez transit, and it differs from a compulsory-pilotage port call in most jurisdictions. Article 11 A states it directly:

Masters are held solely responsible for all damages or accidents of whatever kind resulting from the navigation or handling of their vessels directly or indirectly by day or night. The pilot is not held responsible for any damages sustained during transit owing to his advices since the master or his deputy is the sole responsible for the ship.

Article 4 goes further than that. Owners, operators and charterers are responsible for damage caused directly or indirectly by the vessel or by Authority personnel, and the vessel is wholly responsible unless it proves the damage was not intentional, mistaken or negligent. Article 4(2) removes limitation of liability. Article 4(4) requires the vessel to indemnify the Authority against third-party claims and 4(5) requires it to waive claims against the Authority for third-party damage sustained on the canal. Article 4(7) binds owners, charterers and operators to responsibility for mistakes resulting from the pilot’s advice.

Read that against the LLMC Convention on limitation of maritime claims and the practical effect is clear: a canal casualty is one of the few exposures a shipowner faces where the contractual position denies the tonnage limitation the international regime would otherwise give, which is why hull and machinery insurance placement for a Suez trader is not a formality.

Tugs, escort and the critical tonnage pledge

Article 58 sets escort requirements on Suez Canal Net Tonnage rather than gross tonnage, which is a trap for anyone working from the ship’s ITC-69 figures.

Table reduced from Article 58 of the Suez Canal Authority Rules of Navigation, December 2020 Edition. Containerships below 170,000 SCNT are excluded from the general loaded-tonnage rule.

Three tugs is the maximum on a normal transit absent a technical reason, and a ship pays passage rental only for tugs that actually escorted. Where a first-time transiting ship’s declared tonnage falls in a band immediately below a threshold, the agent must lodge a pledge covering the extra tug hire an Authority audit might require: 66,000 to 70,000 and 85,000 to 90,000 SCNT for loaded tankers, bulk carriers and vehicle carriers, 37,000 to 40,000 and 85,000 to 90,000 for loaded and non-gas-free gas carriers, 123,000 to 130,000 for the ballast equivalents, and 160,000 to 170,000 for containerships. An escorted vessel rigs two 16-inch circumference polypropylene ropes, eye-spliced for the tug’s quick-release hook, giving about 50 m between tug bow and vessel stern.

Article 57 lets the Authority impose a chargeable tug independently of those thresholds: for disabled machinery or bad steering, a second engine or steering failure on the same passage, an obstructed bridge view from deck cargo or cranes, a vessel of 1,500 SCGT and over unable to use a bow anchor, drilling vessels, submarines, aircraft carriers, scrapped vessels under tow, and any general cargo ship , multi-purpose or heavy lift vessel carrying more than 3 tonnes gross of IMDG Class 1 explosives of division 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3. Article 55(4) then gives the master of a vessel using an Authority tug the exclusive direction and control of the manoeuvres of both the vessel and the tug, and 55(5) makes him responsible for damage arising from that use, including damage to the tug itself. That allocation differs from ordinary towage and salvage practice and it should be read before a towage claim is contested.

Governance: the Suez Canal Authority and the treaty basis

The canal is Egyptian internal waters , operated by the Suez Canal Authority under Egyptian law, and its openness to shipping rests on the Convention of Constantinople of 1888 rather than on any navigational right in the law of the sea. A canal is not a strait, which is why both the toll and the treaty exist in the form they do.

The Authority and its charging power

The Authority was established on 26 July 1956 by Law No. 285 of 1956, and its current organizational statute is Republican Decree Law No. 30 of 1975, signed on 29 May 1975, which repealed Law No. 146 of 1957 and was later amended by Law No. 4 of 1998. Article 2 makes it a public authority with independent juristic personality governed by that law alone, outside the general Egyptian statutes on public authorities and public institutions, with an independent budget on commercial principles and a fiscal year running 1 July to 30 June.

Three articles carry the operational weight. Article 8 is the domestic charging power behind every tariff circular, permitting the Authority to impose and levy tolls on navigation and transit and on pilotage, towage, berthing and similar services. Article 14 forbids any measure against the free-navigation provisions of the 1888 Convention and any privilege granted to one vessel or person that is not granted to others in the same circumstances. Article 15 provides that the law does not affect Egypt’s rights and obligations under the Convention.

The pairing matters to an owner in dispute. A ship refused equal treatment at Suez has both a treaty argument and an Egyptian-law argument, because Egypt has re-enacted the treaty obligation in its own current statute rather than leaving it to international law alone. The Authority also states that it alone and exclusively issues and keeps in force the rules of navigation, and it manages the Port of Port Said as an integral part of the canal. It employs about 14,000 people, all Egyptian, on its own undated published figure.

The Convention of Constantinople, 1888

The Convention respecting the Free Navigation of the Suez Maritime Canal was signed at Constantinople on 29 October 1888 by Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Egypt was not a party in its own right, signing through the Ottoman Sultan as territorial sovereign, and the United States never acceded.

Article I carries three separate undertakings: the canal shall always be free and open, in time of war as in time of peace, to every vessel of commerce or of war without distinction of flag; the parties agree not in any way to interfere with its free use; and the canal shall never be subjected to the exercise of the right of blockade. That third sentence is the one that answers the closure question, and it is a distinct obligation rather than a gloss on the first.

The wartime provisions sit in Articles IV to VII. Article IV bars acts of hostility in the canal and its ports of access even where the territorial sovereign is itself a belligerent, limits a belligerent warship’s stay at Port Said or in the Suez roadstead to 24 hours except in distress, and requires 24 hours between the sailings of ships of opposing belligerents. Article V bars embarking or disembarking troops, munitions or materials of war, excepting detachments not exceeding 1,000 men where the canal accidentally hinders them. Article VI applies the same rules to prizes. Article VII bars any Power from keeping a warship in the waters of the canal, expressly including Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes, and allows two warships per Power in the ports of access, a right a belligerent may not exercise.

Two further articles decide whether the Convention still means anything. Article XII states the principle of equality and bars any party from seeking a territorial or commercial advantage in respect of the canal. Article XIV provides that the obligations of the parties are not limited by the duration of the company’s concession, which is why the Convention survived both the expiry of the ninety-nine year concession and the nationalisation of 1956. The supervisory machinery of resident agents in Article VIII is defunct in practice.

Articles IX and X reserve to Egypt the measures necessary for the defence of Egypt and the maintenance of public order, and Article XI provides that those measures must not interfere with the free use of the canal and permits no permanent fortification. Article I read with Articles IX to XI is the frame for any Egyptian security restriction on a transit.

Why UNCLOS transit passage does not apply

Part III of UNCLOS reaches a strait used for international navigation between one part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone and another, under Article 37. An artificial cut through a state’s land territory is internal waters and never enters Part III, so transit passage under Article 38 does not apply, innocent passage does not apply, and Article 26’s bar on charging by reason only of passage has no application either.

That is the whole reason a Suez toll is lawful where a toll on passage through the Strait of Malacca or the Strait of Hormuz would not be. Article 35(c) of UNCLOS, which preserves long-standing conventions regulating passage in particular straits, is sometimes offered as the Suez answer and it is not: it is a saving clause within Part III and it operates only once Part III applies.

Egypt deposited its UNCLOS ratification on 26 August 1983, having signed on 10 December 1982, and its declaration on deposit sets a 12 nautical mile territorial sea and a 24 nautical mile contiguous zone by reference to the Ordinance of 18 January 1951 as amended by the Decree of 17 February 1958.

Whether Egypt is still bound, and by what

Succession by inference is the weak version of the argument, and it is not necessary, because Egypt made the undertaking expressly. The Declaration on the Suez Canal and the arrangements for its operation was transmitted under cover of a letter of 24 April 1957 to the President of the Security Council, circulated as UN documents A/3576 and S/3818, and registered at 265 UNTS. It states the unaltered policy and firm purpose of the Government of Egypt to respect the terms and the spirit of the Convention of 1888 and the rights and obligations arising from it.

Egypt then attached a court to it. By a declaration signed by Foreign Minister Mahmoud Fawzi on 18 July 1957 and recorded by the International Court of Justice under 22 July 1957, Egypt accepted as compulsory, on condition of reciprocity and without special agreement, the jurisdiction of the Court in all legal disputes arising under paragraph 9(b) of the Declaration of 24 April 1957. That is a narrower gateway than a general acceptance of jurisdiction, but it is a real one and it is what distinguishes the Suez regime from a bare political assurance.

Traffic, revenue and the Red Sea disruption

Suez traffic halved in 2024 and has not recovered. The Suez Canal Authority recorded 26,434 transits of 1,568.3 million net tons in 2023, 13,213 transits of 524.5 million net tons in 2024, and 12,758 transits of 522.1 million net tons in 2025. The 2024 fall was 50.0 percent by transits and 66.5 percent by net tonnage, and 2025 fell a further 3.4 percent by transits.

The tonnage fall is far steeper than the transit fall, and that gap is the story. Large ships left first and returned last, so the canal kept a share of its ship count while losing two thirds of the tonnage it earns on.

What the canal carries

Source: Suez Canal Authority, Suez Canal Statistics for 2025 Compared to 2024, Table 3.

By share of 2025 net tonnage, oil tankers and other tankers accounted for 47 percent, bulk carriers 25 percent, container ships 14 percent, LNG carriers 6 percent, general cargo 4 percent, car carriers 2 percent, and ro-ro vessels and others 1 percent each. Cargo moved 464.4 million tonnes in 2025 against 457.8 million in 2024, up 1.4 percent, with north to south traffic down 5.4 percent and south to north up 20.4 percent. Chemical tankers fall inside the tanker aggregate and pay their own rate class.

Revenue is announced by the Authority chairman rather than published in the navigation report. Calendar 2023 produced a record of about USD 10.25 billion and the 2022 to 2023 fiscal year a record USD 9.4 billion. Calendar 2024 fell to about USD 4 billion and calendar 2025 to about USD 4.2 billion. The fiscal year to 30 June 2026 produced USD 4.67 billion, up 23 percent, with vessel numbers up 10 percent and tonnage up 22 percent, which is a recovery from the floor and about half the fiscal-year record.

Oil and gas volumes

The US Energy Information Administration publishes a combined Suez Canal and SUMED pipeline series, and there is no canal-only series, so any oil figure quoted for the canal alone is wrong.

Source: US Energy Information Administration, World Oil Transit Chokepoints, updated 3 March 2026.

The first half of 2025 split 2.8 million b/d of crude and condensate against 2.1 million b/d of products. Suez, SUMED and Bab el-Mandeb combined carried about 6 percent of total seaborne-traded oil in that period. Gas moved the same way and further: LNG through the canal fell from 4.1 Bcf/d in 2023 to 0.5 Bcf/d in 2024, recovering to 0.9 Bcf/d in the first half of 2025, and since 2023 has been almost entirely delivery into Egypt or Jordan rather than long-haul transit.

On share of world trade, the Authority publishes no percentage of its own. UNCTAD put the canal at 12 to 15 percent of global trade and 20 percent of world container trade in January 2024, and the IMF has given about 15 percent of global maritime trade volume. The 30 percent container figure that circulates in trade reporting has no institutional source behind it.

The Red Sea diversion and the return

The diversion is a demand-side event, not a capacity one. The canal has been open and available throughout, and the traffic left because owners judged the southern approach unsafe. That is covered in its own right at red sea crisis and cape diversions and red sea crisis 2023 onwards , and the pattern for the canal is what matters here.

Recovery through 2026 has been carrier-led and has not been monotonic. CMA CGM has been the most committed, with 199 canal transits from the start of 2026 and aggregate 2026 net Suez tonnage about 34 percent above its full-year 2025 total on fewer transits, because it deployed larger ships. Maersk stated on 13 August 2026 that about one third of its normal canal and Red Sea traffic had returned, covering four of thirteen services, and that it was moving gradually to avoid pressuring congested terminals. MSC committed four Asia to Europe services to Suez routing on 24 August 2026, each rotation running two ships lighter than the Cape version. COSCO revived its RES4 service through Bab el-Mandeb from 28 July 2026, its first return in over two years.

The two-ships-lighter figure is the commercial substance of the whole question. A Cape rotation absorbs vessels that a Suez rotation releases, so a return to the canal is a capacity release into a market that has spent two years absorbing it, which is why the routing decision is made service by service rather than fleet-wide.

War risk, and what actually triggers a premium

Under Joint War Committee circular JWLA-034 of 29 July 2026, the listed area’s northwestern boundary is the Red Sea south of latitude 25.5 degrees N, expressly not including Egyptian territorial waters, and Egypt is not a listed country. So the canal transit itself is not inside a listed high risk area , and the exposure on a Suez routing is the Red Sea approach south of that line. JWLA-034 moved that line northwards from its predecessor JWLA-033 of 3 March 2026, so a voyage that cleared the old boundary enters the listed area earlier now.

No premium rate can be quoted from a published source, and none should be. The Lloyd’s Market Association states that rating is a matter for individual negotiation between underwriters and brokers and that the committee plays no part in it. The mechanism under a war risks insurance policy is the held-covered clause: the listed areas are excluded, the owner declares the voyage, and an additional premium is agreed, conventionally on a seven-day basis per transit. Every percentage in circulation traces to broker or trade-press commentary rather than to a tariff.

Naval protection exists and its mandate is narrower than owners often assume. EU NAVFOR ASPIDES , established by Council Decision (CFSP) 2024/583 of 8 February 2024 and launched by Council Decision (CFSP) 2024/632 of 19 February 2024, operates under Article 1(5) to accompany vessels, ensure maritime situational awareness and protect vessels against attack, from an operation headquarters at Larissa in Greece. It is a defensive and escort mandate, not a strike mandate, and it runs to 28 February 2027 as amended. Operation Prosperity Guardian , announced on 18 December 2023 under the Combined Maritime Forces, passed from Combined Task Force 153 to Destroyer Squadron 50 on 1 February 2025. Attacks on merchant shipping engage the SUA Convention 1988 and the flag and coastal state framework rather than the 1888 Convention, whose prohibition on acts of hostility reaches only the canal and its ports of access.

Suez, the Cape or Panama

The rule for most trades is short. Suez wins Asia to North Europe and Gulf to Europe on distance by a wide margin; the Cape of Good Hope route competes only where Red Sea risk, a draft or beam exclusion, or a bunker and toll calculation on a slow-steaming service makes it competitive; and Panama is not a competitor on those lanes at all.

The Authority’s own distance table gives Ras Tanura to Rotterdam as 6,436 nautical miles via Suez against 11,169 via the Cape, a saving of 42 percent, and Ras Tanura to Constanza as 4,144 against 12,094, a saving of 66 percent. Jeddah to Piraeus saves 88 percent and Jeddah to Rotterdam 63 percent. On Ras Tanura to New York the saving narrows to 30 percent, which is where the decision becomes genuinely contestable on toll and bunkers rather than on distance.

The full three-way comparison, including the US East Coast lanes where Panama and Suez actually compete, is set out on the Panama Canal page and is not repeated here. The chokepoint framing across all the world’s passages sits in canals and straits and maritime chokepoints . Where neither canal serves, the alternatives are the Cape, Cape Horn , or the Northern Sea Route , which carries an ice class requirement, a permit regime and a short season under the Polar Code and is not a substitute at liner scale.

Groundings, casualty risk and what Ever Given changed

The canal’s prismatic section produces high blockage ratios, so squat, bank effect and windage dominate the handling problem, and a single grounding in a reach without a second lane closes the waterway in both directions. That is why the Authority’s response to the 2021 blockage was a second lane in the southern sector rather than a change to the traffic rules.

Squat, bank effect and windage

Water accelerating through the narrowed gap between hull and bank lowers pressure there, drawing the stern toward the bank while a high-pressure region at the bow pushes the bow away. The result is a yawing moment and a lateral pull that both grow with speed, with proximity to the bank and with blockage ratio. That is bank effect , and it combines with squat and with windage area to make a large box ship in a beam wind the exposed case rather than a deep-laden tanker.

The Authority regulates all three indirectly. Article 54 caps speed, Article 52 footnote 3 restricts a beam over 210 ft to a beam wind of 10 knots or less, and Article 58 requires escort tugs at tonnage thresholds. A ship whose transit speed equals the critical speed must call the port office, which is a squat provision in traffic-control clothing.

Ever Given, 2021

The Ever Given, IMO 9811000, a Panama-flagged container ship of 219,079 gross tons and 20,124 TEU capacity built in 2018 by Imabari Shipbuilding and managed by Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, grounded on the eastern bank at km 151 at 07:41 local time on 23 March 2021, an hour and a half into a northbound transit from Tanjung Pelepas to Rotterdam. Two canal pilots had boarded at 07:16. The stern was refloated at 04:30 on 29 March and the ship was pulled free at 15:05 the same day, a six-day blockage.

The flag state investigated. The Panama Maritime Authority report R-026-2021-DIAM gives the root cause as loss of manoeuvrability, with wind speed and direction, squat, bank suction and bank cushion contributing, and records indications of hard helm orders given by the pilots instead of a course to steer. Its conclusions are operational rather than legal: the weather had not been evaluated as a risk condition for a vessel of that windage, no escorting tug provided for by Article 58 had been used, the transit had not been postponed, the pilots conducted the pilotage without requesting assistance from the master, and the pilots conversed in Arabic on a bridge where the master and bridge team could not follow. It recommended, among other things, that the Authority impose English as the working language. A separate account of the casualty, the salvage and the arrest sits at Ever Given 2021 Suez blockage , and the general framework is treated at marine casualty investigation and flag state casualty investigation reports .

The commercial aftermath is the part that matters to a superintendent. The Authority claimed USD 916 million, the Ismailia Economic Court of First Instance ordered the arrest of ship and cargo on 13 April 2021, the owners’ appeal was rejected, the claim was reduced to USD 600 million and then USD 550 million, a settlement was agreed on 4 July 2021 and signed at Ismailia on 7 July 2021, and the court closed the file on 11 July 2021. The settlement sum was never disclosed. What is on the record is that the Authority received a tug of about 75 tonnes bollard pull as part of it. Cargo was arrested alongside the ship and general average was declared, which is the routine consequence of a blockage and arrest and the reason cargo interests carry exposure to a casualty they had no part in. Arrest before the Egyptian economic courts is treated at ship arrest in Egypt and the wider subject at maritime lien and ship arrest .

The USD 9.6 billion a day figure that attached itself to the blockage is not a loss estimate. It originated with Lloyd’s List on the stated basis that westbound traffic through the canal is worth about USD 5.1 billion a day and eastbound about USD 4.5 billion, described by its own authors as rough calculations. It measures the value of goods in transit that were delayed, not economic loss incurred.

The pattern is steering failure, not weather

Treating Ever Given as the type case misreads the risk. The recurring cause of a Suez grounding is a steering or machinery failure in a single-lane reach.

• Tropic Brilliance, 6 November 2004: steering gear failure at about km 73 near Ismailia, laden with crude, closing the canal about three days until 9 November and refloated after about 25,000 t was lightered.
• OOCL Japan, 18 October 2017: steering gear malfunction with the rudder hard over, refloated within hours, with fore peak tank damage below the waterline requiring underwater repair.
• OOCL Japan, 6 June 2018: steering failure near km 18, veering off the fairway into the embankment and collapsing several tens of metres of the parallel road.
• Affinity V, August 2022: rudder fault, refloated by tugs with traffic normal shortly after midnight.
• MV Glory, January 2023: aground near Qantara in a single-lane reach, refloated by canal tugs with traffic unaffected.
• Torm Sara, April 2023: aground about two hours on a southbound product tanker voyage, refloated and transit resumed.
• Red Zed I, 20 June 2025: steering failure near km 45 on a Liberia-flagged heavy lift vessel, refloated within an hour.
• Komander, 28 October 2025: machinery failure at km 47 on a sanctioned Russian crude tanker, refloated by five tugs within 30 minutes.
• Xin Tian Yuan, 2 April 2026: rudder-related technical failure at km 87 on a 225 m Panama-flagged bulk carrier, refloated by four tugs and escorted to the Bitter Lakes.

Six of those nine are attributed to steering or machinery failure, and none closed the canal for more than three days. There was no grounding-driven blockage in 2024: the disruption that year was security-driven diversion, which is a different phenomenon with a different remedy.

Grounding procedure and the Letter of Liability

Article 59 puts the whole refloating under Authority control. The master hoists the Article 91 signal and reports whether a tug is needed, whether the passage is clear, and whether lightering is required, with soundings and a statement of fact. Authority officials alone order and direct the refloating, including discharge and towage, and all attempts by other vessels to assist are strictly prohibited. Towage charges run from the moment escort or towage is deemed necessary, and the ship bears all repair costs of any damage or breakdown affecting her getting underway regardless of when it occurred.

Where the grounding is outside the canal proper or follows a collision, charges must be settled on an Authority statement of account before the ship leaves Port Said, Port Said East or Suez. A Letter of Liability is then served on the master, who is obliged to receive it, and refusal is treated as irrelevant: failure to respond within 24 hours is treated as an acknowledgment of responsibility. That 24-hour clock is the provision most likely to be missed on a bridge dealing with a casualty, and it should sit in the ship’s emergency checklist rather than in a claims manual ashore. A salvage engagement on the ordinary Lloyd’s Open Form terms and the Salvage Convention 1989 and SCOPIC sits outside this procedure, because the Authority directs the operation itself.

Charterparty consequences of a Suez transit

Canal dues, waiting time and a rerouting decision each land on a different party depending on the charter form, and the canal transit clause is what decides it. Nothing in the Rules of Navigation allocates any of it: what the Rules settle is that the Authority itself carries none of the risk.

Article 5 is the provision to read first. The Authority may delay a vessel to investigate a claim, dispute, complaint or alleged violation, for security reasons, or on traffic or technical grounds until the ship’s tenderness, trim, list, cargo, hull and machinery are in its opinion reasonably safe for the passage, and no claim for damages is accepted or considered because of any such temporary delaying of vessels. Every hour of that delay therefore falls on owners or charterers under the charter, with no recourse against the canal.

Who pays the dues

Under a voyage charter party the freight is normally quoted to include canal dues on the agreed routing, so a surcharge introduced after the fixture and before the transit falls on owners unless the canal transit clause says otherwise. Under a time charter party dues are a voyage expense for charterers’ account, which is why a 12 percent containership surcharge introduced on 7 June 2026 and effective 15 July 2026 lands on a different party depending on which form is in play. The standard positions across forms are compared in charter parties overview .

The SDR denomination adds an exposure most estimates ignore. A toll agreed in a fixture priced in dollars moves with the SDR basket between fixture and transit even where the Authority issues nothing, so a long-lead fixture carries a currency position on the toll that nobody has explicitly taken.

Waiting time, laytime and off-hire

Convoy waiting is not addressed anywhere in the Rules, so the answer sits in the charter and turns on the cause. A delay imposed under Article 5 because the ship is not in the Authority’s opinion reasonably safe for the passage looks like a ship-side defect and reads very differently under an off-hire clause than a delay caused by convoy traffic or a casualty ahead. Whether waiting counts as laytime , runs into demurrage , or falls outside both depends on where the canal sits in the voyage relative to the loading and discharging ports.

The USD 5,000 additional dues under Article 48(7) for a ship enlisted in a convoy and found not ready is worth flagging separately. It is small against a day’s hire, and it is evidence of readiness or its absence that a party will later rely on in exactly the dispute the off-hire clause is meant to settle.

Rerouting, deviation and frustration

An owner’s refusal to transit, or a charterer’s order to transit, is a war-clause question rather than a canal question, and it is worked through in conwartime and voywar . The threshold is not whether risk exists but whether it has increased in the sense the clause names, and the Suez decision has the unusual feature that the canal itself is outside the Joint War Committee listed area while its southern approach is inside it.

A Cape rerouting adds distance and cost, and added cost and distance do not by themselves make a contract impossible to perform. That is the point frustration of charter parties turns on, and the closure of the canal in 1956 produced the leading authorities on it. Deviation and force majeure in shipping each carry their own tests, and none of them is satisfied by a freight-market outcome alone.

What a transit does to a voyage estimate

A Suez transit enters an estimate as a toll, a set of ancillary charges, a transit time and a waiting allowance, and the sensitivity runs through the toll. On the time charter equivalent of a Gulf to Europe tanker voyage the canal cost is material enough that the choice between a Suez routing and a Cape routing moves the number, which is why tanker freight differentials published against Worldscale carry separate flat rates for the two routings rather than one blended figure. In the container trades the same decision surfaces as a bunker adjustment factor or a named diversion surcharge on the ocean freight cost and surcharges schedule. Documentation is unaffected: a Suez routing is a routing, and the carrier’s obligations under the bill of lading and the Hague-Visby Rules do not change because the ship went one way rather than the other.

Emissions, discharge and regulatory exposure on a Suez rotation

The canal itself sits outside every emission control area, but a northbound rotation crosses three distinct compliance boundaries within a few hundred miles, so a Suez transit is a regulatory transition as much as a geographic one.

The Mediterranean control area at Port Said

The Mediterranean Sea emission control area for sulfur oxides and particulate matter, designated by MEPC.361(79) and in force from 1 May 2024, begins where the canal ends. A northbound ship clearing the Port Said area excluded by Appendix VII paragraph 4.3 passes from open-sea fuel rules into a 0.10 percent m/m limit, which for a ship without an approved equivalent means a fuel changeover planned around the convoy schedule rather than around a port arrival. The area and its neighbours are set out at Mediterranean SECA 2025 and emission control areas , and the global baseline sits at MARPOL Annex VI Reg.14 and the IMO 2020 sulfur cap . A ship complying by exhaust gas cleaning system should confirm the washwater position in canal waters with its agent, because discharge inside the canal is regulated by the Authority and by Egyptian law rather than by MARPOL alone.

Carbon regimes on the northbound leg

A ship continuing to an EU port after a Suez transit enters the EU ETS for shipping and the FuelEU Maritime greenhouse gas intensity regime, both of which price the voyage leg rather than the transit. The routing choice interacts with them directly: a Cape rerouting lengthens the voyage and raises absolute emissions while a Suez routing shortens it, so the carbon cost of avoiding the Red Sea is real and quantifiable rather than notional.

The carbon intensity indicator responds differently again, because it is a ratio rather than a total. Time spent waiting at anchor for a convoy counts against the ship’s annual distance while burning fuel, which is why queueing degrades a rating that a longer laden voyage at reduced speed can improve, a tension covered at slow steaming and CII .

Ballast water, dangerous goods and other discharges

The Ballast Water Management Convention applies to a Suez transit as to any other international voyage, and a ship exchanging or treating in the Red Sea approaches should confirm the position under the Jeddah Convention regional regime as well. Dangerous goods require declaration 48 hours out and again on the Article 15 A dangerous cargo declaration, gas carriers must produce piping and general arrangement plans, and a Class 1 explosives cargo above 3 tonnes gross of divisions 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3 triggers an imposed tug on security grounds.

Solid waste is compulsory and charged whether or not it is landed, which is a departure from the port reception facility model most operators expect. Port state control exposure is a separate matter and follows the ship’s next call rather than the transit, since Egypt is not a Paris or Tokyo MoU state.

Suez in brief: from 1869 to the present

The canal opened on 17 November 1869, closed twice in the twentieth century, and was expanded twice in the twenty-first. Those four facts carry the operational history; everything else is context.

Concession, construction and the 1869 opening

Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained two concessions from Said Pasha, Wali of Egypt, on 30 November 1854 and 5 January 1856, and formed the Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez in 1858. Construction began at Port Said on 25 April 1859 along an alignment that used the Bitter Lakes depression and avoided locks.

The use of forced labour and the 1856 land grants were challenged by Khedive Ismail and his foreign minister Nubar Pasha, and an Ottoman ultimatum of 6 April 1863 demanded a halt. The dispute went to the arbitration of Napoleon III, whose award of July 1864 held the 1856 concession to be a binding contract, ended corvee labour and returned the land grants against an indemnity. Mechanisation followed the award rather than preceding it: in December 1863 the company engaged Borel, Lavalley and Company to design, build and operate the dredging plant. The canal opened on 17 November 1869 with the imperial yacht L’Aigle carrying Empress Eugenie of France, accompanied by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

Britain bought into the company six years later. Under the agreement of 25 November 1875 between Major-General Edward Stanton and Ismail Sadek Pasha, annexed to the Suez Canal (Shares) Act 1876, the British government acquired the Khedive’s 176,602 shares of the 400,000 in issue, about 44 percent and not a majority, for GBP 4,000,000 less the proportionate value of a 1,040 share shortfall. The purchase was advanced by N. M. Rothschild and Sons and ratified retrospectively by statute, which is the constitutional objection Gladstone raised at the time. Older waterways along a different alignment, from Necho II through Darius, Ptolemy II and Trajan, are treated separately at canal of the pharaohs , where the ancient sources disagree with each other and the disagreement is the subject.

Nationalisation and the 1956 closure

President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the company by Law No. 285 of 1956, signed on 26 July 1956, which transferred its funds, rights and obligations to the state and compensated shareholders at the Paris stock exchange value of the shares on the day before the law took effect. The Suez Crisis of 1956 followed: the Israeli invasion of Sinai on 29 October 1956, an Anglo-French ultimatum, air strikes from 31 October, a parachute assault on Port Said on 5 November and a ceasefire on 7 November.

Egypt blocked the channel with sunken ships, dredgers, other craft and a bridge. The United Nations Suez Canal Clearance Organization, directed by Lieutenant-General Raymond A. Wheeler from his arrival at Port Said on 18 December 1956, cleared it across a staged reopening in March and April 1957 with final clearance works completed in May 1957. Compensation was settled by a Heads of Agreement signed at Rome on 29 April 1958 for EGP 28.3 million in 1958 values, payable in six interest-free annual instalments from 1 January 1959, with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development providing good offices.

The 1967 to 1975 closure and its consequence for ship size

The canal closed at the outbreak of the June 1967 war and reopened on 5 June 1975, the longest closure in its history . With the short route to the Gulf shut, crude moved around the Cape, where no canal draft limit applies, and owners built to suit: the VLCC and ULCC classes grew into the trade during exactly those years. That is the clearest case on record of a chokepoint constraint shaping hull dimensions rather than the reverse.

Fifteen ships were caught inside when it closed, fourteen of them anchored in the Great Bitter Lake and the SS Observer cut off in Lake Timsah. Their crews, from eight countries, formed the Great Bitter Lake Association in October 1967 and ran a post office, a hospital ship and a cinema ship between them, a story told at yellow fleet, Great Bitter Lake . Clearance was carried out under Operations Nimbus Star, Nimbus Moon and Nimrod Spar, with all salvage completed on 19 December 1974. The German ships Munsterland and Nordwind reached Hamburg under their own power on 24 May 1975, before the formal reopening ceremony.

Limitations

Every dimensional and tariff figure on this page is an operational limit the Suez Canal Authority revises by circular and by amendment to the Rules of Navigation, and the figures here are stated against the December 2020 Edition and the circular register as at 1 September 2026. The draft available to a given ship is a function of its beam and of its load line marks, not a single published maximum, so no figure here substitutes for reading Tables No. 1 and No. 2 against the ship’s own certificate.

Three classes of figure move faster than the rest. Traffic, tonnage and revenue are recomputed monthly and are still moving with the Red Sea situation. The tariff is circular-driven and, because it is denominated in Special Drawing Rights, it also moves with the SDR basket with no announcement at all, which no other major canal tariff does. Red Sea risk posture and war-risk pricing change with the Joint War Committee review cycle and with events between reviews.

Several figures in wide circulation are absent from this page because they cannot be traced to a primary source, and their absence is deliberate rather than an omission. The Authority publishes no share of world trade, no pilot count, no ratio between Suez Canal Net Tonnage and ITC-69 gross tonnage, and no minimum charge. No war-risk premium rate exists in any published tariff. The oil volume through the corridor is published only as a combined Suez and SUMED series. Where this article gives no number, it is because none could be verified, and a plausible figure is worse than an acknowledged gap.

Related Articles

• Canals and straits : the world’s constructed and natural passages, and how the Suez limits sit against them.
• Panama Canal : the lock canal, its freshwater budget, and the full Suez against Panama against Cape routing comparison.
• Strait of Malacca : the transit-passage counterexample, where no toll may be levied on passage.
• Suez Canal Authority : the operating body, its founding law and its charging power.
• Suez Canal Net Tonnage : the 1873 Constantinople measurement basis and the certificate that carries it.
• Suez Canal Rules of Navigation : the rulebook behind the draft tables, the speed limits and the tug thresholds.
• Suezmax : the tanker class the canal defines, and why its deadweight band has moved.
• New Suez Canal, 2015 : the parallel channel programme and what it changed in convoy scheduling.
• Great Bitter Lake : the passing place, anchorage and inspection area at the midpoint.
• Port Said and Port of Suez : the two terminals and their approaches.
• Gulf of Suez and Strait of Gubal : the southern approach and its offshore congestion.
• Suez Canal Economic Zone : the industrial and port zone along the corridor.
• SUMED pipeline : the crude bypass for ships too deep to transit laden.
• Internal waters : the UNCLOS category that makes the canal toll lawful.
• Ports and terminals overview and world port profiles : the wider port reference layer.
• Maritime security and risk and maritime piracy and BMP : the threat and response framework for the southern approach.
• Vessel traffic services and IMO ships’ routeing : traffic management inside and outside the canal.
• Marine voyage planning and routing and weather routing : where a canal decision enters passage planning.
• SOLAS , COLREGs and ISM Code : the instruments that apply throughout the transit.
• Flag state and flag of convenience : flag-state obligations of vessels transiting under the 1888 Convention.