The United States eases energy sanctions against Iran, creating an optimal window for reducing shipping costs and optimizing routes for large foundation components in the Middle East

The US Treasury Department has issued a short-term general license, temporarily relaxing restrictions on cross-border trading of Iranian crude oil and petrochemical products, significantly improving the circulation of energy shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and expecting a rebound in global crude oil supply. The short-term policy relaxation this time directly eased the geopolitical panic in Middle Eastern shipping, driving the synchronous optimization of oil prices, maritime insurance, and route planning. It brings dual benefits of cost reduction and efficiency improvement to the cross-border logistics of large pile foundation equipment such as rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers in the Middle East and Europe. At the same time, the short-term policy window period also brings certain operational risk control requirements.

Expected rebound in crude oil supply, steady decline in fuel costs for large vessels

The US has lifted restrictions on Iran’s oil production, sales, and maritime trade, filling the global crude oil supply gap and rapidly cooling the upward trend of international oil prices. Heavy lift ships and semi submersible ships that transport plataformas de perfuração rotativa and pile drivers belong to high fuel consumption special ships, and the fuel cost accounts for a very high proportion of the total shipping cost. With the decline in oil prices, major shipping companies have lowered fuel surcharges and directly reduced the ocean freight costs for pile foundation equipment. For engineering machinery foreign trade enterprises that have long-term routes to the Middle East and Europe, the logistics and fuel expenses for individual equipment have been significantly reduced, effectively alleviating the cost pressure caused by previous geopolitical conflicts.

The risk of cross-strait shipping has cooled down, and the cost of war insurance for large maritime shipments has been reduced

The relaxation of energy sanctions marks a further easing of the US Iran confrontation, and the stability of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz continues to improve. Global shipping insurance institutions have downgraded the geopolitical risk rating of the Persian Gulf waters. The plataforma de perfuração rotativa and pile driver have high cargo value, cannot be disassembled, and have a high risk premium for navigation. They have been bearing high war insurance premiums before. With the easing of regional conflict risks, the special war surcharge for large vessels has been simultaneously reduced, further compressing the comprehensive cost of equipment sea transportation. Compared to ordinary bulk cargo, the cost dividend brought by the reduction in insurance premiums for high-value engineering equipment is more intuitive.

Direct shipping routes have fully returned, effectively shortening the delivery cycle of equipment by sea

During the previous confrontation between the United States and Iran, most large ships sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to avoid risks, resulting in a significant increase in transportation distance. The relaxation of US energy trading this time further stabilizes the navigation order in the strait. Large special vessels do not need to detour long distances and can resume direct flights to the Mediterranean and European main routes from the Persian Gulf. The voyage has been significantly shortened, and the sea transportation time has been reduced by more than a week, which can ensure that the plataforma de perfuração rotativa and pile driver arrive at overseas construction sites on time, avoid problems such as pile foundation project suspension and schedule breach, and significantly improve the stability of cross-border delivery.

The policy has short-term timeliness, and large-scale logistics still needs to do a good job in cycle risk control

This US permit only lasts until August 21st and is a temporary policy, not a permanent lifting of sanctions. There is still a risk of recurrence in subsequent policies. Logistics companies should not blindly lock in long-term Middle Eastern long haul cabins, and still adopt a short-term booking and flexible allocation of transportation capacity model. At the same time, reserve the China Europe freight train and Central Asia multimodal transport as backup channels to cope with the risk of sudden tightening of sanctions policies. Relying on short-term policy dividends to reduce logistics costs, while maintaining the bottom line of supply chain security, smoothly passing through this policy window period.