Suez traffic is running a third above last year, on a rerouting Cairo does not explain

Suez Canal Authority chairman Osama Rabie, speaking in Ismailia on 22 September, put August 2026 transits at 1,358 ships, up 26.9% on 1,070 in August 2025; tonnage at 68.3m tonnes SCNT, up 51.1%; and revenue at $567.1m, up 56.7% on $326m a year earlier. For January to August the Authority counts 9,602 ships (+17.4%), 437.9m tonnes SCNT (+33.4%) and transit dues just under $3.5bn (+34.5%). July revenue of $505m, up 42% and the highest monthly total since December 2023, was reported by Bloomberg from CAPMAS figures and relayed by trade press; The Files has not seen the Bloomberg original. Rabie’s full-year guidance, per the same Bloomberg reporting, is $5.8bn–$6.0bn. The Authority’s own annual series runs $10.25bn in 2023, $3.991bn in 2024 and $4.67bn for FY2025/26, up 23%.

On 4 October, Madbouly put canal revenue at about $4.4bn, recovering from a trough of $3.3bn against a pre-disruption level of about $10bn, and costed the Red Sea disruption at more than $6bn a year. He gave no fiscal period, and $4.4bn does not match the Authority’s $4.67bn for FY2025/26 — two state bodies, two numbers, the same month. The reason the tonnage is moving is less clearly stated. The trade publication container-mag reports that the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed to commercial shipping following regional escalation, pushing volume toward Suez while European carriers resume some Red Sea services. That claim currently rests on one outlet. The September SCA bulletin, due imminently on the August release schedule, had not appeared as of Friday.

Assessment: The difference between a recovery and a windfall is whether it survives the thing that caused it. If Hormuz is genuinely shut and holding, Egypt’s canal numbers are a transfer from one chokepoint to another, and they reverse on the day the strait reopens — which makes Rabie’s $5.8–6.0bn guidance a bet on someone else’s war continuing. Neither the Authority nor the cabinet has framed it that way, and the official account of a return to normal transit is doing work that the underlying routing does not support. Treat the Hormuz claim as unconfirmed until a second carrier stands it up. The Madbouly-versus-Rabie gap is not a scandal; it is a useful reminder that the headline canal figure depends on who is counting and over what period.