Strait of Hormuz Disruption: What Thai Shippers Should Do

The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow sea passage that connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Container lines serving ports such as Jebel Ali, Dammam, Hamad, Kuwait and Iraq's Umm Qasr normally pass through it, which makes it a single point of failure for a large regional market. Thai exporters of food, auto parts, building materials, appliances and consumer goods all ship into these markets, and Thai importers bring in petrochemicals, fuel-linked products and other cargo that depends on Gulf supply chains. When passage through the strait becomes unsafe or restricted, the effect reaches Thai shippers through the carrier network, not through anything Thai Customs or the exporter controls.

This article explains the mechanics, not a forecast. It covers how emergency surcharges are built, why carriers switch to other gateway ports, what to check in a quotation and booking, how Incoterms and insurance interact with a port change, and how cargo already booked differs from a new booking. As of October 2026, industry sources describe the strait as heavily disrupted for container shipping since the conflict escalated in late February 2026, with reports of temporary easing that did not last. Conditions, carrier notices and surcharge levels change frequently, so treat any specific situation described here as a snapshot and verify it with your carrier or forwarder before you commit.

Why a Gulf chokepoint reaches Thai shippers

Most Gulf container services are loops. A vessel loads in Asia, perhaps transships at a hub such as Singapore, Port Klang or Colombo, calls at one or more Gulf ports and returns. If the strait is unsafe, three things can happen to that loop. The carrier can suspend the service, it can skip the Gulf calls and discharge outside the strait, or it can reroute the cargo by a longer path. Each of these breaks the schedule your booking was built on. Space on remaining sailings tightens because every shipper is trying to move at once, and containers end up in the wrong places, which affects equipment availability back in Thailand.

The disruption also spreads beyond Gulf-only services. Networks are connected: a vessel diverted to an Indian port because it missed a call elsewhere pushes delays into the next rotation. Even Thai cargo that never goes near the Gulf can meet delays at shared hubs or find that equipment has been pulled to serve the busier lane. Industry analysts have noted that a number of Asia to Europe services call at least one port in the wider region, so ad hoc rerouting cascades.

There are two separate questions for you. The first is physical: how will my cargo reach the buyer, through which port and by which mode. The second is contractual: what do my booking, bill of lading, sales contract and insurance say when the carrier changes the plan. Most losses come from not asking the second question early enough.

Alternative gateway ports and how cargo gets there

When carriers cannot call inside the strait, they use ports outside it and carry the cargo onward. As reported by industry analysts in 2026, the commonly named options are Khor Fakkan and Fujairah on the east coast of the UAE and Sohar in Oman. All three lie outside the strait on the Gulf of Oman side. Cargo discharged there is then moved by truck to the final destination, for example a consignee in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, or on to other Gulf countries. Other relays that carriers have used include transshipment at west-coast Indian ports followed by feeder vessels, and routings through the Mediterranean and the northern Red Sea to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, with onward trucking across the kingdom. Some carriers have also suspended particular services outright.

Two cautions apply. First, which port a given carrier uses can differ by service and by week, so a named port in this article is an example of how the system works, not a promise about your booking. Second, these ports were not built to absorb the whole region's volume. Analysts have reported severe congestion and late arrivals at several of them, and terminal operators have discussed expansion, which takes time. Containers can wait days to be discharged and collected, and this is where storage and detention start to accumulate.

The onward leg is not a formality. It needs trucks, drivers, border or inter-emirate crossings, customs transit or re-export documents in some cases, and a consignee able to receive on a new schedule. A cargo that is cleared at one port and trucked a long distance can face rules and paperwork very different from a direct port delivery. Ask your forwarder who handles each stage and who holds the cargo in between.

How emergency surcharges work

Carriers publish a base ocean rate and then add surcharges that react to cost and risk. In a Gulf disruption, three families of charges tend to appear, and they have different logic. We describe the mechanics only. The amounts change by carrier, lane and week, and you should take them from a current written quotation, never from an article.

The first family is the emergency fuel or bunker surcharge. Longer routings, such as sailing around a closed passage, burn more fuel, and fuel prices themselves can jump during a conflict. Carriers respond with an emergency fuel surcharge on top of the regular bunker adjustment factor. Our guide to the bunker adjustment factor explains the normal formula-based version. An emergency one is usually announced with short notice, can be set per container rather than by formula, and is meant to be temporary. Ask whether it replaces or adds to the existing bunker line, otherwise you may pay twice for the same cost.

The second family is the war risk or emergency conflict surcharge. It recovers extra costs a carrier meets when it keeps serving a dangerous area: higher war-risk insurance premiums on the vessel, crew compensation, security measures and the cost of diversions. It may be called a war risk surcharge, an emergency conflict surcharge or a transit surcharge, and some carriers charge it per container for any vessel that passes through the affected waters. Because it is defined by each carrier, the wording and the trigger differ. Ask exactly what event triggers it and whether it still applies if your container is discharged outside the strait.

The third family is congestion, port-change and handling charges. If a carrier discharges at an alternative port, terminals, trucking and storage can generate their own fees. Some carriers pass these on as a destination or diversion charge. Others bill the cargo owner locally. Where demurrage and detention are triggered by delays you did not cause, ask whether free time can be extended. Our guides on hidden freight charges and demurrage versus detention show how these items normally appear on an invoice.

What to check in your quotation and booking

A disruption is when vague quotations become expensive. The goal is to turn open-ended carrier discretion into terms you can plan around. Before you confirm any booking to the Gulf region, read the quotation and the booking confirmation line by line against the questions below.

Start with the port of discharge and the place of delivery. Does the quotation say the carrier will discharge at the port you named, or at a port the carrier chooses? Most bills of lading give the carrier the right to discharge at an alternative port when the named port is unsafe or inaccessible. That right is normal and legal. What you can negotiate is who pays for the consequences, so look for wording on the cost of onward carriage from the alternative port.

Then read every surcharge as a separate line with its own name, its basis (per container, per ton or per shipment), its start date and its expiry. A surcharge that says valid until further notice gives you nothing to plan around. If the quotation is all-in, ask which charges are included and which remain at cost. Our explanation of the all-in freight rate shows why bundled prices still need an exclusions list.

Check the validity period. A quotation that expires before your cargo gates in is not a quotation you can rely on. Our guide to freight rate validity explains how validity relates to the sailing date and to the date the booking is accepted.

Finally, ask about free time. Standard free days for storage and detention are set around a normal journey. If the container is going to wait at a congested alternative port, ask in advance whether the carrier will extend free time or cap the charges, and have the answer written into the booking.

Cargo already booked versus a new booking

The right move depends on where you are in the process. Cargo that is already booked, or already at sea, is governed by the contract of carriage that exists. New bookings are a clean sheet.

For cargo already booked, the first step is to ask the carrier or forwarder for its current written position on your specific booking: will the sailing operate, at which port will the container be discharged, what surcharges now apply, and what happens to free time. Then read the bill of lading terms. The carrier is usually entitled to change the port, and the carrier's liability for delay is typically limited or excluded, so the outcome often depends on negotiation and on your relationship with the forwarder rather than on a legal claim. Tell your buyer early. Ask the buyer whether the final delivery point can move to the alternative port, whether the buyer's own agent can collect there, and whether a letter of credit or payment term needs an amendment, since an altered port can create a discrepancy against documents that name the original one. If the cargo is not yet loaded, you can sometimes cancel or rebook. Ask about cancellation conditions before you ask for them.

For a new booking, you have choices. You can pick the delivery point, ask for a quotation that names the alternative port and the onward leg, and set an expiry for each surcharge. You can sign the sales contract with a clause that deals expressly with port changes, extra transport cost and delay. You can also plan a realistic buffer. If your customer has a fixed date, such as a project handover or a retail launch, discuss the tradeoff openly instead of promising a date that the network cannot support. Our guide to planning lead times shows how to build such a buffer.

Incoterms: who carries cost and risk when the port changes

Your Incoterm does not control the carrier, but it decides who is exposed when the carrier acts. Under FOB or other terms where the buyer arranges the main carriage, the buyer or the buyer's forwarder usually holds the contract with the carrier. Port changes, surcharges and onward trucking are then mainly the buyer's problem to manage, although a seller who has already shipped still needs to cooperate with documents and communication. Under CFR, CIF, CIP and CPT, the seller arranges the main carriage to a named destination. Here the question becomes sharper. If the named destination is a Gulf port inside the strait and the carrier discharges elsewhere, who pays for the extra leg, and has the seller met the obligation to deliver to the carrier? Under CIF and CFR the seller's cost obligation ends at the named port, but risk passed earlier when the goods were on board, so the details matter.

Delivered terms such as DAP and DDP place the most exposure on the seller, because the seller promises delivery at a place and must absorb the cost of getting there. A seller who signed a DAP contract to a Gulf city before the disruption, with a price built on the old routing, may now carry the surcharge, the alternative port handling and the trucking, all while a late delivery clause runs. This is the situation where the sales contract and its force majeure or change-in-circumstances wording is more useful than any quotation.

For new sales, choose a term that matches what you can control. Many exporters quote a term that ends at a port or terminal outside the affected zone, or use FOB or FCA and let the buyer pick the carrier and routing. If you quote a delivered price, include a clause that lets you re-price for official or carrier-imposed surcharges after a stated date. Our guides on choosing Incoterms for SMEs and on Incoterms and cargo insurance explain the underlying risk transfer in more detail. Have a lawyer review any clause that shifts significant cost.

Insurance and war risks

Marine cargo insurance is not one product. Whether a loss is covered depends on the clauses attached to your policy. Standard cargo clauses commonly exclude loss caused by war, strikes and similar events, and separate war clauses and strikes clauses can be added. War cover for cargo in the Institute Cargo Clauses family generally applies only while the goods are on the vessel or other waterborne craft, and it is usually subject to a notice of cancellation by the insurer. That has two practical meanings for a Gulf disruption. First, insurers can change the terms or the premium for shipments to affected areas at short notice. Second, once your container is discharged at an alternative port and trucked overland, the war cover for the waterborne part may stop, and the overland leg needs to be covered under the standard terms that apply on land.

The most important thing you can do is ask the insurer or broker in writing before the shipment sails: is the destination or routing now excluded or subject to additional premium, does war cover apply on this shipment, from where to where, and how is the trucking leg treated. Then check that the insurance certificate describes the actual route and that the sum insured still reflects the goods plus the extra costs. If your Incoterm makes you responsible for insurance, as with CIF or CIP, this is your duty to the buyer, not an optional extra. If the buyer insures, send the buyer the updated routing so the policy remains consistent with what is physically happening.

Two related concepts are worth knowing. General average is a principle under which the owners of cargo and the vessel share losses made to save a voyage in a common peril. If a general average declaration happens, the cargo owner may be asked for a contribution and security even if the cargo itself was undamaged, and insurance is how most shippers cover it. Our guide explains the process. Separately, carrier liability limits are low compared with the value of most cargo, as we explain in our comparison of carrier liability and cargo insurance. In a disruption, that gap is larger than usual.

Customs, documents and the delivery end

A port change at the destination touches the customs and document chain, even though Thai Customs is not involved. The bill of lading names a port of discharge and a place of delivery. When the carrier discharges elsewhere, the cargo is often moved under a customs transit arrangement or cleared at the alternative port. Which of these applies depends on the countries involved and the consignee's arrangements. We cannot give the specific procedure for each country here, so confirm with your forwarder and the consignee's customs broker. Be ready to supply the commercial invoice, packing list and certificate of origin quickly, and make sure the consignee is able to act as the party that clears or receives cargo at an unexpected location.

Letters of credit deserve particular attention. A credit that names a specific port of discharge, and a bill of lading that shows a different port, can produce a document discrepancy, and the bank may refuse to pay until the credit is amended. If you sell on letter of credit terms, ask your buyer to have the credit amended in advance to allow the alternative port or to say a more general destination. Our guides to letter of credit shipping document mistakes and to the bill of lading show where such discrepancies tend to arise.

The delivery end is also the place where cargo gets stuck. Check that the consignee can accept delivery on short notice, that appointments at warehouses and construction sites can move, and that the notify party details on the documents are accurate so that the arrival notice reaches the right person. For perishables or temperature-controlled cargo, reefer plug-in time at a congested port is a specific danger, and the plan for power and monitoring during any wait must be agreed in advance. For dangerous goods, check whether the alternative port and the trucking route accept your class of cargo at all.

Contingency options and what stays uncertain

No single option removes the risk, so think in layers. The first layer is information. Ask your forwarder for a weekly written update on your lane that covers sailings, the discharge port, congestion and surcharge changes, and set a calendar reminder to re-check before every booking. Industry analysts recommend tracking schedule reliability and port congestion on a regular basis and mapping which of your services touch the affected region.

The second layer is routing. Ask for quotations on at least two paths, for example a service discharging at an east-coast gateway with trucking, and an alternative via a Red Sea port, and compare them on the total door-to-door picture, not on the ocean rate alone. Where goods are time-critical and valuable enough, air freight or a split shipment can protect a launch date. Our guide to choosing between sea and air freight sets out how to compare. Where the customer can accept a later delivery, holding stock in Thailand until the picture clears may cost less than moving it into congestion.

The third layer is commercial. Keep your sales contracts flexible by naming the alternative port, setting an expiry date for surcharge pass-through, and agreeing how delays are handled. Keep a backup forwarder relationship so you have a second view of the market, as explained in our guide to a backup freight forwarder. Keep your cash cycle in mind: longer transits tie up working capital and may delay payments under letters of credit.

Finally, be honest about what stays uncertain. Nobody can say when passage will normalise, which carriers will resume Gulf calls and in what order, how long surcharges will stay, or how quickly congestion at alternative ports will clear. Industry sources have also noted that even after a reopening, fuel supplies and prices and vessel positioning can take months to settle. Plan for a range of outcomes, write down the assumptions behind your plan, and revisit them whenever a carrier notice changes the picture.