Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Maersk’s operations are heavily impacted, with shares falling due to strike delays and fears that the reopening of the Red Sea route will cut into profits.
Supply chain disruption and industrial action have, in the last week, demonstrated the fragility of maritime shipping across Europe, exacerbating an already uncertain situation for international maritime logistics companies. The situation is exemplified by the fates of Maersk, the global shipping giant, who has seen stocks tumble as a result of recent announcements which could indicate a reopening of the Red Sea to cargo ships.
Today, a strike in the Dutch port of Rotterdam and a protest in nearby Belgian ports have ground European shipping to a halt, threatening regional supply chains. The ports, both major Maersk hubs, are expected to experience increasing delays, which could in turn create backlogs downstream of intra-European supply chains.
An already fraught situation for Maersk was worsened yesterday when its shares hit a three-month low. In part, this is the result of a prospective upcoming Israel-Hamas deal that would reopen Red Sea shipping routes, diminishing the company’s margins.
The Rotterdam delay is caused by a strike by Dutch lashers – port employees who secure and unload containers to and from cargo ships – that began Thursday afternoon in the port of Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest container shipping hub. The dispute centres around pay and working conditions for workers: the strikers’ union (FNV) demands a 7% pay rise for its nearly 700 workers.
Maersk said in a statement that while “terminal infrastructure […] remains operational, vessel operations are currently being significantly impacted”. According to Reuters, the queue of ships waiting to enter the port has consequently doubled compared with its normal length.
The congestion is exacerbated by Storm Amy’s disruption of Baltic Sea shipping routes this weekend, which created a backlog of ships in the port.
Ships bound for the Rotterdam port, source: https://shiptracker.portofrotterdam.com/map
Negotiations between the FNV and the Rotterdam port’s two lashing companies, the International Lashing Service and the Matrans Marine Services, are expected to start at noon today. If no agreement is reached, the union has threatened to continue the strike during the weekend, when the port normally operates with reduced hours.
About 4% of Europe’s container traffic passes through the Rotterdam port, most of it bound for central Europe through overland transport or Scandinavia through smaller container ships. It is also one of Maersk’s most important hubs for both incoming and outgoing cargo ships, and forms part of its crucial Northern Europe/Mediterranean maritime shipping loop.
The strike could threaten the European supply of fresh produce, much of which is brought from Africa and Latin America to continental Europe through Dutch and Belgian ports. Maersk, which operates most container ships in the ports, warned of “delays or interruptions in load and discharge operations” that could affect supply chains.
Delays in the Rotterdam port usually lead ships to reroute to nearby Antwerp, Zeebrugge, and Ghent, in Belgium. However, unrelated protests by harbour pilots have significantly slowed operations in ports across Belgium, further exacerbating the delays. The harbour pilots, who guide container ships through industrial ports, are protesting against federal pension reforms, which they say unfairly target their sector.
These developments have diminished Maersk’s margins; further, the prospect of an upcoming Israel-Hamas deal that would reopen Red Sea shipping routes keeps the company’s future uncertain.
The Red Sea shipping route, once the fourth-busiest in the world, has been avoided by most container ships since the start of the conflict two years ago due to risk for the vessels and their personnel. Instead, ships had been taking the much longer and more exposed route around the Cape of Good Hope, which added days to the journey and a higher risk of container loss.
However, the change in shipping routes – along with a sharp rise in demand for shipping in the run-up to Trump’s tariffs – led to record profits for container companies. Maersk recorded £42 billion in profits in 2024, its third-best year ever and an 8.7% yearly increase boosted by record demand.
The reopening of the Red Sea route, along with tariff-related nearshoring, has decreased investor confidence in the shipping giant, whose stocks fell 2% yesterday, hitting a 3-month low.
If the strike-related delays continue, they could further disrupt the container giant’s operations and place European maritime shipping in a more uncertain position.
