Suez posts its best month since the Red Sea closed, and will not say how much is surcharge
Osama Rabie put October canal revenue at $724m, up 94% year on year. The arithmetic behind the headline suggests tonnage, not the July container surcharge, did almost all the work.
Suez Canal Authority chairman Osama Rabie gave the October numbers at a panel organised by the Egyptian Businessmen’s Association on 5 November, with an SCA statement the same day: $724m in revenue against $373m in October 2025, 1,490 transits against 1,128, and 88m net tons against 47m. Rabie said the waterway was showing “a remarkable improvement despite the geopolitical challenges in the region,” in remarks quoted by Al-Monitor, and told reporters the authority had begun localising shipbuilding and exporting vessels under a “Made in Egypt” brand, according to TASS. The figures were carried by Amwal Al Ghad on 9 November and The Middle East Observer on 10 November. None of it is audited: the SCA does not publish monthly revenue as a verified series, and every number traces to a single named official.
The Middle East Observer, alone among the outlets reviewed, noted that a temporary 12% surcharge on container vessels took effect in July 2026 and that the SCA has not broken out how much of October’s increase came from pricing rather than traffic. On the SCA’s own figures, revenue per net ton worked out at roughly $8.23 in October 2026 against $7.94 a year earlier — a rise of about 4% — while revenue per transit jumped from about $331,000 to about $486,000. That arithmetic is THE FILES' calculation from Rabie’s numbers, not a published series. It points one way: the mix has shifted toward larger ships, and the 94% is a tonnage story with a surcharge layered thinly on top. August revenue was $567m, per Rabie via Ahram Online.
Assessment: The political use of this number in Cairo will be that the Red Sea problem is over. It is not. One month above trend annualises to roughly $8.7bn against the 2023 record of $10.25bn, and the comparison base — October 2025 — was near the floor. The test is November, and the place to run it is the independent transit trackers rather than the SCA’s own count. Treat the Evergreen-return headline circulating on 10 November as unconfirmed: it appeared in one outlet and not in the carrier’s own communications. If the authority will break out surcharge revenue, that disclosure is worth more than the headline.