Suez revenue is climbing again because the Strait of Hormuz is shut, not because the Red Sea is safe
Canal receipts hit $1.26 billion in the second quarter, up 13% on the first. The recovery rests on tankers rerouted by a closure Egypt neither caused nor controls — and on destination data that is being deliberately falsified.
Suez Canal revenue reached $1.26 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 13% from $1.12 billion in the first, according to figures attributed to CAPMAS, Egypt’s statistics agency. A pound-denominated series reported by Masrawy on 5 August puts first-half revenue at about EGP 122.5 billion against EGP 108 billion in the second half of 2025, a rise of 14.5%; the two series do not reconcile precisely and should not be mixed. Rio Times attributes the recovery to tankers returning to the waterway because the Strait of Hormuz is closed — the outlet’s interpretation, not a statement by CAPMAS or the Suez Canal Authority. The SCA’s own forecast, relayed through the State Information Service and attributed to chairman Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie, is around $8 billion in FY2026/27 and potentially $10 billion by FY2027/28. That is a projection by the institution that benefits from it.
The specialist trackers show something more fragile than a recovery. Lloyd’s List Intelligence recorded Suez transits falling to 269 in the week beginning 20 July from 354 the week before, with preliminary data for 27 July–2 August at 266 — traffic stabilising at early-2026 levels, with disruption LLI characterises as “limited to the tanker market rather than impacting the wider shipping industry.” At Hormuz, LLI logged 84 transits in the week to 2 August, then 73 in the week of 10–16 August, down from 91, attributing suppressed volumes to Tehran’s targeting of Hormuz users and Washington’s blockade of Iranian ports. Separately, Bloomberg reported on 7 August that tankers entering the Red Sea to load Saudi oil are increasingly signalling Egypt and Suez as their destination to mask Saudi Red Sea loadings.
Assessment: Two cautions travel with these numbers. First, the driver is exogenous: a revenue line that rises because a chokepoint 1,500 miles away is closed falls again when it reopens, and Rabie’s $8–10 billion path assumes a war economy persists. Compare his February framing, when he credited the Gaza ceasefire and regional stability for the same trend line — the SCA has now attributed recovery to both peace and war within six months. Second, the Bloomberg AIS finding corrupts the cleanest available proxy: if ships bound for Saudi terminals declare Suez, then Suez-bound signalling no longer measures Suez. Trust the transit counts, not the declared destinations.