Suez Canal
قناة السويس
What it is
A man-made canal in Egypt linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, paralleled by the SUMED pipeline which moves crude overland between its two ends when the largest tankers cannot transit fully laden.
What transits it
النصف الأول من ٢٠٢٥ · إدارة معلومات الطاقة الأمريكية (EIA)source
Why it moves price
The shortest route between the Gulf and Europe. Diverting around the Cape of Good Hope adds roughly nine days to a Gulf–Europe voyage, and those days show up in freight rates and inter-basin crude spreads before they show up anywhere else.
Is there a bypass
The Cape of Good Hope — longer and costlier, but always open and free of transit fees.
Tension is measured daily, not described
We track thirteen chokepoints and terminals, publish a daily tension score with its components and the reasoning behind each, and tie it to the prices that move with it.