Suez revenue hits $724m in October as Cairo raises its own target twice in a month
The Suez Canal Authority says October traffic was the best since Red Sea diversions began. The numbers come from one source, and half the tonnage is hydrocarbons.
Speaking at a discussion session hosted by the Egyptian Businessmen’s Association in Cairo on 5 November, Suez Canal Authority chairman Osama Rabie said October revenue rose 94% year on year to $724 million, from $373 million. The waterway handled 1,490 ships against 1,128 in October 2025, a 32% increase, with net tonnage up 86% to 88 million tons. Rabie described a “remarkable improvement despite the geopolitical challenges in the region,” and told the same session that Egypt had lost roughly $20 billion in canal revenue since the disruption began. The figures were carried by Al-Monitor, TASS, Amwal Al-Ghad, Al Jazeera Arabic and Safety4Sea — all tracing to Rabie or to an SCA statement. There is no independent audit of Authority revenue data. On 10 November the SCA announced that Evergreen’s EVER EON had transited the canal, ending a near three-year absence by that line.
The forward numbers moved faster than the traffic. At a working dinner on 4 November, Rabie set a 2026 target of $6.6 billion against roughly $4.2 billion the prior year, rising to $7.6 billion in 2027, about $10.3 billion by 2029 and $12 billion by 2030 — a level the Authority had originally meant to reach in 2024. The trade outlet El-Taameer notes the $6.6 billion figure is an upward revision of a $6.2 billion target the Authority announced in October. Separate data published by CAPMAS, the state statistics agency, on 2 November puts nine-month revenue at just over $4.05 billion, with Q3 at $1.664 billion. Reaching $6.6 billion for the year therefore requires roughly $2.55 billion in the fourth quarter. Rabie did not explain the bridge.
Assessment: The composition matters more than the headline rate. CAPMAS puts oil and gas tankers at 50% of nine-month tonnage and container ships at 18.5% — this is an energy-routing recovery wearing the clothes of a trade recovery. Al Jazeera Arabic attributes the improvement partly to Saudi crude moving via Suez while Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab are disrupted; that claim is unattributed and unconfirmed, and if it holds, the growth path Rabie is selling rests on someone else’s crisis. Note also that the Authority is now announcing individual vessel transits as news. Lines returning one string at a time is not a fleet redeployment. Treat the 2030 target as a budget request, not a forecast.