Suez revenue climbs to a two-year high on a strait that is still closed

Egypt’s statistics agency CAPMAS recorded 529 oil tankers transiting the Suez Canal in April 2026, 28 percent more than in April 2025, pushing revenue to its highest level since early 2024, according to Bloomberg’s 10 June report. Second-quarter canal revenue came to $1.26bn, up 13 percent on the roughly $1.12bn taken in the first quarter and the strongest quarter since Q1 2024, on figures carried in early August by Rio Times and Financial Afrik — both aggregating a CAPMAS release neither reproduces, and neither a wire. The cause is not a pacified Red Sea. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed since the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran on 28 February 2026, and operators have rerouted, many through Suez. The New Arab reported on 12 June that oil flows and revenue had rebounded sharply even as overall traffic stayed below pre-2023 levels.

Suez Canal Authority chairman Osama Rabie has been publicising the return of the carriers that left. On 22 August, timed to the inaugural transit of the 190,000-tonne BANGKOK MAERSK on a northbound convoy from Italy to Singapore, he said the canal had restored several Europe–Asia services and seen a noticeable rise in daily Maersk transits, Daily News Egypt reported. On 18 August he met CMA CGM’s executive vice president for assets and operations, Christine Cabau, with the SCA putting CMA CGM at 199 transits and 25.2m net tons since the start of 2026. In March, FreightWaves quoted Rabie describing the same two carriers' suspensions as “a temporary measure contingent upon developments in the security situation in the region”. Six months, round trip.

The Authority’s account of why traffic is recovering has moved with events. On 8 February, opening the 15th International Maritime and Transport conference, Rabie reported 1,315 vessels, 56m net tons and $449m in revenue between 1 January and 8 February, against 1,243 vessels, 47m tons and $368m a year earlier, and attributed the improvement to the Gaza ceasefire restoring regional stability. By June the driver was plainly Hormuz. Rabie has separately told an IMF mission that canal revenue would reach roughly $8bn in FY2026/27 and potentially $10bn in FY2027/28, according to an undated State Information Service release. On 6 August he was defending the canal against the argument that land corridors could replace it, telling Egypt Today a single ship can carry 240,000 tons and 24,000 containers — “floating cities” with a draft the height of a six-storey building.

Assessment: Read the canal’s recovery as rented, not earned. Every number above is real; the mechanism behind them is a closed strait and a war, and it can be withdrawn as fast as it arrived. Two cautions. The transit and tonnage figures Rabie announces are the SCA’s own, unaudited, and the quarterly revenue series reaching the desk this month comes via derivative outlets rather than the CAPMAS bulletin. And the $8bn/$10bn projections were delivered to an IMF mission — that is a negotiating position on future foreign-currency earnings, presented to the institution deciding disbursements, not a forecast. That Rabie is arguing publicly against land corridors says the argument is being made in Cairo.