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Egypt’s Suez Canal Revenues Rise 14% as Red Sea Tensions Ease

Ships move through the Suez Canal, in Ismalia, Egypt, July 31, 2025. (Reuters)
Ships move through the Suez Canal, in Ismalia, Egypt, July 31, 2025. (Reuters)
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Egypt’s Suez Canal Revenues Rise 14% as Red Sea Tensions Ease

Ships move through the Suez Canal, in Ismalia, Egypt, July 31, 2025. (Reuters)
Ships move through the Suez Canal, in Ismalia, Egypt, July 31, 2025. (Reuters)

Egypt's Suez Canal revenues rose 14.2% year-on-year between July and October, the canal authority said on Tuesday, citing calmer conditions in the Red Sea after a ceasefire in Gaza and a pick up in traffic through the vital waterway.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis launched more than 100 attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait that links them in 2023 and 2024 in what they described as solidarity with the Palestinians over Israel's war in Gaza, prompting many shippers to switch to alternative routes.

Suez Canal Authority Chairman Osama Rabie said 229 ships returned to transit through the canal in October, the highest monthly figure since the start of the regional crisis, adding that traffic volumes and tonnage had shown a "relative improvement" in recent months.

From July to October, 4,405 vessels carrying 185 million metric tons passed through the canal, compared with 4,332 ships carrying 167.6 million tons in the same period last year, Rabie told Reuters during a meeting with representatives from 20 major shipping lines in Ismailia.

Rabie said the positive atmosphere following last month's Sharm el-Sheikh summit on Gaza's future had encouraged many carriers to resume using the canal.

He invited global shipping companies to conduct trial voyages through the waterway, underscoring Egypt's efforts to restore confidence among maritime operators after months of disruption in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab region.

French shipping line CMA CGM has already resumed crossings with two large container vessels, while other operators, including MSC, Ever Green, and Cosco, said they were considering expanding their activity through the canal as conditions stabilise.

The Suez Canal, the fastest sea route between Europe and Asia, remains a key source of hard currency for Egypt, which has faced financial strain amid regional instability and reduced transit traffic earlier this year.

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US Says it Will Not Hit Iran Energy Sector

FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright attend a roundtable on the Ratepayer Protection Pledge in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, D.C., US, March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright attend a roundtable on the Ratepayer Protection Pledge in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, D.C., US, March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
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US Says it Will Not Hit Iran Energy Sector

FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright attend a roundtable on the Ratepayer Protection Pledge in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, D.C., US, March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright attend a roundtable on the Ratepayer Protection Pledge in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, D.C., US, March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo

The United States will spare Iran's energy infrastructure as it wages war with Israel against Tehran, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday.

With oil prices rising dramatically, he told CNN that disruptions to the petroleum and gas industry will be short lived -- "worst case, that's a few weeks. That's not months."

Israel attacked oil storage facilities Saturday in and around Tehran, sparking huge fires in the first such attacks reported since the war started last weekend. Wright seemed to downplay them.

"These are Israeli strikes, these are local fuel depots to fill up the gas tank," Wright said.

He added: "The US is targeting zero energy infrastructure. There are no plans to target Iran's oil industry, their natural gas industry, or anything about their energy industry."

The war has all but shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 percent of the world's crude oil and about 20 percent of liquefied natural gas usually transit.

Energy markets have been roiled by this disruption and oil prices shot up. West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark for oil, rose 12 percent just on Friday and is up 36 percent in a week.

"They shouldn't go much higher than they are here because the world is very well supplied with oil," Wright told CBS. "There's no energy shortage in all of the Western hemisphere."

US insurer AAA said US gasoline prices at the pump have gone up 16 percent in a week and diesel by 22 percent.

The website GasBuddy says diesel fuel, used extensively in trucking, had not been this expensive since February 2023.

Gasoline prices are closely watched in this country where cars are king and they could become a factor as America heads toward mid-term elections in November. Trump's approval rating was low even before the war.

"What you're seeing is emotional reactions and fear that this is a long term war," Wright said on CBS, according to AFP. "This is not a long-term war."

He said the United States is now talking with shipping companies eager to get their vessels out of the Gulf.

"Early tankers probably will involve some direct protection by the US military" to get through the Strait of Hormuz, he said, adding that he thinks traffic will return to normal "relatively soon."

Iran accounts for about four percent of world oil production, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Its oil industry is subject to international sanctions but some is still exported, mainly to China, oil industry data shows.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday the government was considering lifting sanctions on more Russian oil, a day after it temporarily authorized India to buy from Moscow as global oil prices surged.

The US International Development Finance Corporation also said Friday it is creating a reinsurance mechanism of up to $20 billion to cover risk associated with travel through the Strait of Hormuz.

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Iraqi Oil Production Collapses as Hormuz Still Blocked by US-Iran War, Sources Say

Pumping station at the end of the Druzhba oil pipeline in Schwedt, Germany (AP)
Pumping station at the end of the Druzhba oil pipeline in Schwedt, Germany (AP)
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Iraqi Oil Production Collapses as Hormuz Still Blocked by US-Iran War, Sources Say

Pumping station at the end of the Druzhba oil pipeline in Schwedt, Germany (AP)
Pumping station at the end of the Druzhba oil pipeline in Schwedt, Germany (AP)

Iraqi oil production from its main southern oilfields has fallen by 70% to just 1.3 million barrels per day as the country is unable to export oil via the Strait of Hormuz due to the Iran war, 3 industry sources said on Sunday.

According to Reuters, production from the fields stood at around 4.3 million bpd before the war.

Business

Egyptian Pound Hits Record Low as Mideast War Roils Markets

One of the ATMs in downtown Cairo, the Egyptian capital (AFP)
One of the ATMs in downtown Cairo, the Egyptian capital (AFP)
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Egyptian Pound Hits Record Low as Mideast War Roils Markets

One of the ATMs in downtown Cairo, the Egyptian capital (AFP)
One of the ATMs in downtown Cairo, the Egyptian capital (AFP)

Egypt's currency fell to a record low, trading at over 52 to the US dollar on Sunday, as the economic fallout of the war in the Middle East hits the region's most populous country.

The US-Israeli war on Iran has expanded across the Gulf and beyond, upending global energy markets and trade, and virtually halting traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's crude oil travels.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last week warned that the country was in a "state of near-emergency", warning of renewed inflationary pressures.

Despite Egypt not having been directly hit by the war, the fighting has nonetheless pushed some shipping companies away from its Suez Canal, a key source of foreign currency.

Egypt's import-dependent economy has proved highly sensitive to currency fluctuations in the past.

Inflation -- 11.9 percent in January -- peaked at nearly 40 percent in August 2023, on the back of a punishing economic crisis that has since eased, thanks in part to an over $50 billion bailout.