Up to 10 per cent of the world’s container fleet is caught up in the Strait of Hormuz, with the backlog showing no sign of clearing. However, despite the global chaos, timber shipped from Europe into Australasia remains unaffected for now, with timber landing in the Port of Sydney via the Port of La Spezia, or into Brisbane via the Port of Venice and Singapore. The only risk for now is a marginal increase in fuel costs.
That is according to Manuel Pagnin, Director of Seatram Logistics, who imports thousands of containers into the Australian market each year and spoke to Wood Central about the Gulf crisis and its implications for timber, the 17th most traded global commodity by sea.
“As it stands, the timber landing in Australia — including cross-laminated timber and glulam used in iconic projects like the Sydney Fish Markets and Atlassian Central tower — leaves from Northern Europe or the Mediterranean. They’ve been circling the Cape of Good Hope since the Houthis’ attacks on the Red Sea in late 2023. The route takes 10–14 days, and has been standard for more than two years.”
Manuel Pagnin, the Director of Seatram Logistics, who spoke exclusively to Wood Central about the ongoing crisis in the Gulf.
And whilst fuel costs are currently up 10 to 12 per cent, Pagnin is not forecasting major disruption to Australian supply lines…at least not yet. “There is a chance we could see ‘vessel bunching’ in the next two to four months if ships are caught in busy ports in Asia, like Singapore, should the conflict drag on,” he warned.
Wood Central understands that vessel bunching occurs when the number of sailings in a given week exceeds scheduled services, with ships piling up at ports that were never designed to absorb that volume at once.
In October 2024, Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, said the medium-term consequences of bunching can be problematic: “This increases the risk of port congestion — and as a ripple effect, a similar crunch on truck, rail, and barge capacity. Vessel bunching can be seen as a proxy measure for the pressure on ports and the likelihood of congestion problems.”
As it stands, 137 vessels remain stranded in the strait — a figure unchanged in recent days as deteriorating conditions continue to deter shipowners from attempting the transit.
In addition to those vessels tied up in the conflict, those not travelling through the Strait are now looking to offload in Turkey and truck materials — including structural timber — overland into the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, according to an industry source with knowledge of the situation. Those markets are among the most timber-hungry in the world, and the workaround is adding weeks to transit times and incurring high costs for every consignment that gets through.
It comes as Wood Central reported that a Hormuz closure is structurally different to the Red Sea crisis, when Houthi attacks forced vessels off the Suez route in 2024, the Cape of Good Hope was painful but passable. A closed strait removes the destination entirely.
- For more information about the crisis, click here for Wood Central’s special coverage on the impact of Strait’s closure on large volumes of timber being traded into the Middle East and into North Africa.
