Anchorage queues swell in Asia as war enters week five

Anchorage queues swell in Asia as war enters week five
Sam Chambers March 27, 2026 https://splash247.com/anchorage-queues-swell-in-asia-as-war-enters-week-...

Paralysis around the Strait of Hormuz is being felt at global shipping hubs around the world.

Ships are holding, rerouting, or bunching at alternative ports while operators wait for clarity with contradicting lines coming out of Washington and Tehran on the state of the war, which enters its fifth week tomorrow.

The seven-day average number of vessels waiting at anchorage in Singapore has risen to 30.3 as of March 25, compared with 20 before February 28, when the conflict started, according to data from maritime analytics platform Portcast.

The worst-hit ports include Busan in South Korea, where the average reached 12.9 versus 5.4 before February 28, data from Portcast showed.

In the offshore sector, roughly one in five of the world’s offshore vessels are now based in a region that has effectively stopped operating: 1,440 OSVs, 432 OCVs, and 156 jack-up rigs — representing 19%, 18%, and 27% of their respective global fleets — are currently stranded in the Gulf with no clear timeline for resumption, according to new data from Veson Nautcal.

Following on from yesterday’s Splash lead about Chinese state-backed COSCO reentering the region, Linerytica data shows COSCO’s 18,982 teu CSCL Arctic Ocean made the first outbound transit from the Strait of Hormuz today, marking the first containership that is not linked to Iran to make it out from the Persian Gulf since the Iran war started on four weeks ago.

On VLCCs, one of the sectors most affected by the military action, broker Fearnleys noted: “The Strait of Hormuz remains shut for all practical purposes. However, the likes of Yanbu and Oman is attracting more attention from owners as more ships are released from previous commitments from inside the MEG. There is a feeling out there that a (false?) sense of security is sneaking in on the back of reports that US and Iran are set to talk, and the perception is growing that these alternative load options have become less exposed – and with that rates have come under pressure.”

Meanwhile, France said yesterday that 35 countries joined a discussion on working to reopen shipping through the strait.

The videoconference of defence staff chiefs focused on how to reopen shipping “once the intensity of hostilities has sufficiently decreased,” France’s Defence Ministry said.

That could entail a “strictly defensive” mission to escort commercial vessels and restore freedom of navigation, the ministry added.

Giving an idea of the financial hit caused by the ongoing Hormuz paralysis, German liner Hapag-Lloyd said yesterday it is incurring additional costs of $40m to $50m per week due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Six Hapag-Lloyd vessels, with 150 crewmembers, remain stranded in the Persian Gulf.