The Suez Canal’s $8bn projection for this year predates the blockade that broke Bab el-Mandeb traffic
Suez Canal Authority chairman Ossama Rabie told an IMF mission in December that FY2026/27 revenue would reach around $8bn. Nobody has revised it since the Houthis blockaded Saudi Arabia in July.
The Suez Canal Authority closed FY2025/26 with $4.67bn in revenue, or EGP 230.22bn, up 23% year-on-year — figures given by Rabie to Ahmed Mousa on Sada al-Balad on 28 June and reported by Egyptian Streets, on the same day Rabie briefed President Sisi. The recovery was visible earlier: between 1 January and 8 February, 1,315 vessels and 56m net tons generated $449m, against 1,243 vessels, 47m tons and $368m in the same weeks of 2025. “The canal,” Rabie said in remarks carried by Anadolu, has “demonstrated in recent years its ability to withstand economic and geopolitical challenges.” Against that base sits the projection he gave an IMF mission in December 2025 and the State Information Service published: about $8bn in FY2026/27, potentially $10bn the year after. Eight billion implies a jump of roughly 71% on the year just recorded.
What has happened since is a different traffic picture. Lloyd’s List Intelligence’s Red Sea Brief of 6 August reported Bab el-Mandeb traffic down 24% after the Houthis imposed a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, with volumes stabilising after the initial fall and the disruption concentrated in tankers. Suez transits themselves, the same brief noted, “remain broadly unchanged,” with an uptick in VLCC movements — preliminary tracking for 27 July to 2 August recorded 266 transits, a level last seen in early 2026 before Strait of Hormuz disruption temporarily inflated Red Sea volumes, including eight VLCCs. On 13 August, Lloyd’s List Intelligence reported Maersk gradually restoring Asia–Europe services via Suez, with Maersk and MSC steadily expanding trans-Suez operations while watching the strait. Recovering Suez receipts were among the factors The National credited on 31 July when the IMF approved a further $1.8bn, taking cumulative disbursements to $7.3bn.
Assessment: The gap between an unwithdrawn official forecast and observed traffic is the most chartable thing on this desk. Nothing in the record says the SCA has revised the $8bn, and nothing says it has defended it either; silence on a number made before a blockade is not confirmation. Read the carrier behaviour rather than the projection: Maersk and MSC are restoring Suez strings incrementally, which is a bet on the corridor’s insurance economics, not a return. Note also who the December forecast was given to. A revenue line presented to an IMF mission becomes an input to programme financing assumptions, and the end-September status report required by Country Report 26/69 falls inside the same fiscal year.