In recent years, several logistical projects have been proposed, each centered around leveraging the geographical location of a country or a coalition of allied countries to establish logistical corridors that serve regional and global trade routes. These corridors are particularly crucial for connecting East Asia with Western Europe and America. The proposed projects vary, including maritime routes utilizing oceans, open seas, and man-made canals for ship navigation, as well as land routes relying on railways, roads, and pipelines for transporting goods and petroleum products. Additionally, there are multimodal corridors that integrate both land and maritime routes for the movement of goods.
These new projects are viewed as potential future competitors to the Suez Canal, as they may reduce the share of trade passing through this crucial Egyptian waterway, which is currently the most important man-made maritime corridor in the world. Any reduction in trade could negatively impact the economy of the canal and, by extension, the Egyptian economy as a whole. However, there are many doubts surrounding the likelihood of success for some of these competing projects if implemented. Other doubts concern the feasibility of executing some projects in the first place, leading to a possibly inaccurate perception that the Suez Canal will remain unchallenged in the medium and long term. This necessitates an analysis of the progress made in implementing and operating these projects up to the publication date of this report to reach an objective evaluation of the potential loss of business for the Suez Canal in the future.
The first report in the “Suez Canal in the Face of Global Competition” series will focus on the maritime routes that are believed to be potential traditional competitors to the Suez Canal. These routes are expected to facilitate the passage of ships with large cargoes without the need for loading or unloading, as is the case with multimodal corridors. Currently, six such maritime routes have been proposed, five of which are spread across the world’s continents, while one is located within the Middle East region. These routes are as follows:
1. The Russian Northeast Passage
This route is distinguished by its shorter distance between East Asia and Northwestern Europe, with a journey between the Sea of Japan and the Norwegian Sea covering only 8,000 nautical miles. In contrast, the same journey via the Suez Canal exceeds 12,000 nautical miles—see map 1. The route also has the advantage of not having any choke points or security tensions along its length. However, it is limited by its seasonal operations, as it is only accessible during the summer months when ice density decreases. Additionally, the route requires specialized equipment, such as icebreakers, to navigate its ice-filled waters.
Map 1: Route of the Russian Northeast Corridor in comparison with the corresponding Suez Canal route
Climate changes, which have reached the Arctic, have opened up unexpected possibilities for activating this route. Scientists predict that the areas adjacent to Russia’s northern coasts will be ice-free during the summer within three decades, enabling Russia to exploit the oil and gas fields beneath these regions. It will also allow free navigation between East Asia and Western Europe for three months each year. This potential motivated the Russian government to announce in late 2022 a plan worth 1.8 trillion rubles ($30 million) to develop projects that support transit trade through this promising route. Additionally, Russia plans to build a fleet of ice-strengthened commercial ships, facilitating the annual transport of 160 million tons of goods by 2035, and assisting China in launching its Polar Silk Road project.
2. The Canadian Northwest Passage
This route consists of a series of passages winding through the coasts and islands of Northern Canada—see map 2. It can reduce the distance between East Asia and Western Europe to less than 10,000 nautical miles, whereas the same distance using the Panama Canal exceeds 12,000 nautical miles, and using the Suez Canal approaches 14,000 nautical miles.
Map 2: Canadian Northwest Corridor Route
However, this logistical advantage has not helped the Canadian passage achieve a significant position in the world of international maritime navigation due to several obstacles hindering its development and maximizing its benefits. Chief among these are the harsh polar terrain of the region, characterized by widespread icebergs that threaten the safety of passing ships. Additionally, there is insufficient infrastructure to support maritime trade along the route. Further complicating matters is the political dispute between the United States and Canada over the latter’s right to manage the passage as exclusive Canadian property rather than an international route, as Washington desires to secure its security and economic interests linked to this route.
3. The Panama Canal
In the 19th century, the Colombian authorities governing the Panama region aspired to replicate Egypt’s Suez Canal project by creating a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The narrow distance between the oceans at the area known as the Isthmus of Panama—see map 3—motivated this project. The French, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the engineer of the Suez Canal, attempted to assist Colombia in executing its ambitious project beginning in 1881. However, numerous obstacles hindered its completion, such as the difficulty of excavation due to heavy seasonal rains and dense forests. Additionally, the spread of venomous reptiles and disease-carrying insects led to high mortality rates among workers, causing the French efforts to halt in 1889 after costing international investors nearly $300 million.
Map 3: Isthmus Panama
The United States managed to overcome the challenges faced by the French and opened the Panama Canal to international navigation in 1914, making it the second most important man-made global maritime corridor after the Suez Canal and the main link between the Eastern and Western Americas. The canal’s engineering design, based on a system of locks, has facilitated the passage of approximately 700,000 commercial ships over a century. However, in recent decades, the canal’s inability to accommodate ships with deadweights exceeding 90,000 tons has been a significant drawback, as this does not align with the evolution of international navigation and the increasing size of ships seeking to pass through.
This challenge prompted the Panamanian government to launch a new project in 2016, known as the Third Set of Locks, which allowed ships with deadweights of up to 160,000 tons to pass through the Panama Canal. This development increased the percentage of global trade passing through the canal to 6% annually, up from just 4% in 2010. However, this expansion has not enabled the Panama Canal to compete with the capacity of the Suez Canal, which can accommodate ships with deadweights of up to 240,000 tons.
During the second half of last year, 2023, the Panama Canal faced another unprecedented challenge: the drying up of freshwater lakes that supply the locks. This crisis reduced the number of ships passing through daily to 22, lowering the canal’s operations by 40%. The crisis also led to ship congestion at the canal entrances and extended waiting times to more than 20 days before passage. This situation threatened to disrupt $270 billion in global trade passing through this route and caused the Panama Canal Authority to lose over $600 million in annual revenues.
While expectations suggest that the Panama Canal may recover from this crisis by 2025, climate change could lead to recurring droughts, reducing the canal’s attractiveness to global shipping lines that may fear disruptions. This new challenge may push the Panamanian authorities to find effective engineering solutions to maintain the water levels necessary for the locks to function. In this context, the Panama Canal’s ambitions in the coming period will likely focus on maintaining the traditional level of operations recorded before the drought crisis, which saw 14,000 ships pass through annually. Any plans for development and expansion may be postponed in the near and medium terms.
4. The Nicaragua Canal
For centuries, Nicaragua’s governing authorities have aspired to have a waterway that facilitates trade between the eastern and western coasts of North and South America. Such a canal would save commercial ships from having to navigate around Northern Canada or down around Cape Horn in South America. Even after the construction of the Panama Canal, Nicaragua’s dream of building a larger and better canal persisted, one capable of accommodating ships with deadweights exceeding 300,000 tons.
However, several environmental and economic obstacles have hindered the realization of this ambition. These include the region’s volatile natural conditions, such as frequent floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the spread of tropical infectious diseases. The harsh geological characteristics of the project site have also complicated any excavation plans. These challenges once led planners to consider using atomic bombs to blast through some of the proposed canal’s sections, a measure that would have caused severe environmental damage had it been implemented.
Historically, Nicaragua has tried to compensate for its lack of expertise and resources by collaborating with major powers such as the United States, Russia, and China. However, these attempts have consistently ended in failure, as studies have always shown that the project’s costs far outweigh its expected returns. The most recent attempt in this regard occurred in 2014, when a Chinese company began preliminary work to prepare for large-scale excavation and construction of a canal with locks similar to those of the Panama Canal, but with a significantly greater annual capacity. However, the project was completely canceled in mid-2024 when the Chinese company failed to demonstrate its ability to complete it.
It is expected that the dream of building this canal will remain elusive, but hopes will continue to be pinned on the development of technical technologies that could facilitate this complex task. Additionally, the project will likely be subject to the whims of local political dynamics, which come and go depending on the need. However, a more realistic alternative project that the Nicaraguan authorities may pursue in the near future involves extending land-based networks of railways, highways, and oil pipelines to help transport goods that the Panama Canal can no longer handle due to the ongoing drought in its lakes. It can be concluded that Nicaragua’s projects are more likely to compete with and challenge the nearby Panama Canal, which will face increasing difficulties as global climate change intensifies.
5. The Cape of Good Hope
This route dominated the top of maritime passages linking the East and West of the world from the late 15th century until the late 19th century. However, its significance began to diminish with the opening of the Suez Canal by Egypt in 1869, as the Egyptian canal helped shorten the distance between the far east of Asia and the far west of Europe by approximately 26%—see the following table, number 4—and also reduced travel times by an average of 20 days compared to using the Cape of Good Hope route. Over the past decades, the Egyptian state has worked on expanding and increasing the facilities of the Suez Canal, which has enabled it to accommodate global container ships of various sizes, as well as 93% of bulk carriers and 61.2% of oil tankers.
Table 4: The distance between three international destinations via the Suez Canal Road and the Cape of Good Hope Road.
| Who is it | into | Distance (nautical miles) | Save distance by using the Suez Canal | Save distance by using the Suez Canal | |
| Through the Suez Canal | Through the Cape of Good Hope | In nautical miles | In percentage | ||
| Tokyo | Rotterdam | 11,192 | 14,507 | -3,315 | 23% |
| Singapore | Rotterdam | 8,288 | 11,755 | -3,467 | 29% |
The limited global ship traffic using the Cape of Good Hope route has contributed to the decline in the activity of African ports along the route in countries such as Madagascar and South Africa, as well as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Senegal, and other West African coastal states. This has hindered developmental investments in these regions over the past decades, resulting in most of these ports, particularly container ports, remaining in the category of small or, at best, medium-sized ports. Moreover, most of these small ports have been deprived of the opportunity to enter global competitiveness rankings. The few African ports that managed to secure a place in these rankings, due to their limited capabilities, could not advance beyond the last positions in any global classification—see the following table, number 5.
Table 5: African container ports located on the Cape of Good Hope route according to their country and global ranking for the year 2022.
| Global Ranking | Port Country | Port Name |
|---|---|---|
| 227 | Madagascar | Toamasina |
| 338 | South Africa | Ngqura |
| 341 | South Africa | Durban |
| 344 | South Africa | Cape Town |
| 293 | Namibia | Walvis Bay |
| 271 | Nigeria | Monrovia |
| 226 | Sierra Leone | Freetown |
| 189 | Guinea | Conakry |
| 197 | Senegal | Dakar |
| 331 | Mauritania | Nouakchott |
| 252 | Morocco | Agadir |
| 159 | Morocco | Casablanca |
Note 1: The total number of global container ports evaluated by this report is only 348.
Note 2: None of the ports from Guinea-Bissau or The Gambia were mentioned in the report at all.
The security tensions that erupted in the southern Red Sea since November 2023 have revitalized the Cape of Good Hope route. Several global shipping lines have redirected their vessels towards this maritime passage instead of the Suez Canal, where insurance costs for ships passing through it have skyrocketed by 20 times between October 2023 and February 2024 alone. International statistics have reflected this flourishing situation for the Cape of Good Hope route, with ship traffic increasing by more than 41% in just one year—see the following figure, number 6.
Figure 6: Number of merchant ships registered to transit through the Cape of Good Hope on the first day of each calendar month over the past year.
African ports are currently experiencing significant congestion, leading ships to avoid stopping there whenever possible. This situation has sparked regional and international calls for the development of these ports to take advantage of the ongoing shifts in global maritime shipping. However, investments in this regard remain hesitant, as the traffic might eventually return to normal along the Suez Canal route, which could result in the loss of funds spent on developing African ports. There is also concern about the potential expansion of piracy in West Africa, driven by increased commercial maritime activities, alongside the limited capacity of West African countries to secure maritime routes and their poor coordination.
In the coming years, efforts might focus on resolving various challenges hindering the development of the Cape of Good Hope route to maintain it as an effective alternative to the Suez Canal, which could face further disruptions if similar crises arise. Moreover, modern shipbuilding technologies are pushing towards the possibility of relying on the Cape of Good Hope route even without the development of African ports along it. Future ships are expected to rely on clean and sustainable energy sources, and their larger cargo capacities will likely compel them to navigate open waters, avoiding the Suez Canal, which has depth limitations.
The Ben Gurion Canal Proposal:
In the early 1960s, the United States proposed to its ally Israel the idea of connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas by digging a canal parallel to Egypt’s Suez Canal. The proposed route would pass from Eilat on the Red Sea coast, through the harsh terrain of the Negev Desert and mountains, reaching Beersheba, and then the Mediterranean coast at Ashkelon—see the following map, number 7. The Americans envisioned using hundreds of nuclear bombs to excavate the 160-mile-long canal. However, American estimates eventually highlighted the high economic and political costs of such a project, leading to a swift American retreat from the idea.
Map 7: Route of the proposed canal between the Red Bahrain and the Mediterranean
Israel has remained hopeful about the possibility of digging a canal parallel to the Suez Canal over the past decades due to the significant economic and political benefits it could gain from such a logistical project. This has led Israel to propose ideas that pose engineering challenges to overcome the natural obstacles in the Negev Desert and Aqaba region along the proposed canal route. One such costly idea was constructing a canal with a lock system similar to the Panama Canal, which planners saw as a solution to the varying elevations of the mountains in the Negev and Aqaba regions. However, studies have shown the difficulties of excavation and construction in these rugged mountains, and the use of water locks in the desert raises another question about how to divert the massive amounts of water needed for the opening and closing of each lock.
Israel recently revived its proposal, especially after the Ever Given ship incident, claiming to offer a logistical solution immune to disruptions through the Ben Gurion Canal, designed as two parallel lanes—one for going and one for returning. Israel attempted to convince some wealthy Arab countries with which it has made political reconciliations to join in the project. However, the entire idea remains an unattainable hope, especially since the Indian Spice Route project currently captivates the minds of Israelis and their regional and international partners alike.
In conclusion, the six proposed maritime routes are unlikely to pose a threat to Egypt’s Suez Canal in the short to medium term. However, two of these routes could become strong competitors in the long term: the Russian Northern Sea Route and the Cape of Good Hope route, provided that investments increase in developing the infrastructure supporting them and in the development of commercial ships suitable for navigating these routes.
References Used
First: Arabic References
- Article: “Enhancing the Competitiveness of the Suez Canal in the Face of Competing and Alternative Routes,” by Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, Part One, Issue One, Journal of National Security and Strategy, Military Academy for Higher Studies and Strategy, January 2023.
- Report: “The New Suez Canal: Five Years of Success,” by Mostafa Abdellah, Egyptian Center for Thought and Strategic Studies, October 2019.
- Report: “The Suez Canal: The Most Important Maritime Corridor in Global Trade,” General Authority for Information, February 2022.
- Report: “Houthi Attacks on Maritime Navigation: Numerous Strikes and Varied Impacts,” by Mostafa Abdellah, Egyptian Center for Thought and Strategic Studies, June 2024.
- Report: “The Ben Gurion Canal: Between Geography’s Rejection and Colonialism’s Insistence,” by Nesreen Ali Salama, International Association of Experts and Political Analysts, September 2023.
Second: Foreign References
- Report: “Development in the Russian Arctic,” Arctic Portal, The Arctic Gateway Organization, Iceland, 20th of September 2023.
- Report: “Northwest Passage,” Arctic Portal, The Arctic Gateway Organization, Iceland.
- Report: “Northeast Passage,” Arctic Portal, The Arctic Gateway Organization, Iceland.
- Report: “The Nicaragua Canal: Potential Impact on International Shipping and Its Attendant Challenges,” by Chen and others, Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2017.
- Book: “The Panama Canal: An Army’s Enterprise,” Center of Military History, USA Army, Washington, D.C., 2009.
- Research Paper: “The New Panama Canal,” by Menarguez & La Flor, Technical University of Madrid, August 2017.
- Report: “Disruption vs Expansion: African Ports and the Red Sea Crisis Challenges,” Emirates Policy Center, 25th of April 2024.
- Report: “Use of Nuclear Explosives for Excavation of a Sea-Level Canal Across the Negev Desert,” by H. D. MacCabee, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA, 1st of July 1963.
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