Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2026-07-21 Origin: Site
For nine consecutive nights, the US military has launched strikes on military, coastal surveillance, and maritime combat facilities within Iran's borders. The risk of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz has escalated comprehensively, and the core shipping routes from the Persian Gulf to Asia, Europe, and East Africa have become unstable. Rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers are oversized and overweight engineering equipment, which rely on heavy lifting ships, roll on/roll off ships, and specialized frame cabinets for transportation. They have extremely high requirements for navigation safety and stable port operations. The command, air defense, and communication facilities along the coast of the strait have been attacked, and the order of ship scheduling and dock loading and unloading has been disrupted. A large number of pile foundation equipment waiting to be transported has been stranded in domestic shipping ports and Middle Eastern transit ports. The originally fixed direct transportation link has almost come to a standstill, and there are no small ships available to divert and transport large equipment. The supply of basic transportation channels has been greatly reduced.
To avoid the risk of attacks in the strait, major shipping companies have suspended direct routes to the Persian Gulf, forcing all pile foundation equipment ships bound for the Middle East, North Africa, and Southern Europe to detour around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. Compared to the Holmuz short haul route, the detour distance has increased by nearly 40%, and the one-way transportation time is 10 to 14 days longer. Rotary drilling rigs are mostly transported naked, with high dismantling and reassembly costs and significant project losses. They are rarely disassembled and transported in batches, completely disrupting the delivery rhythm of orders. Middle Eastern infrastructure construction sites generally rely on pile foundation equipment to carry out building, road, and bridge operations. The delayed arrival of equipment at the port directly causes on-site work stoppage, and export enterprises face performance risks such as project breach and customer claims.
The geopolitical risks of waterways drive the synchronous increase of logistics costs throughout the entire chain, forming multiple layers of cost pressure transmission. Firstly, the international maritime war risk rates have soared significantly, and the value of large engineering equipment is high, resulting in insurance premiums several times higher than usual; Secondly, detours incur additional expenses such as fuel consumption, vessel leasing, and manual operation and maintenance. Shipping companies also charge additional fees for navigational risks and extra long voyages; Thirdly, there is a tight supply of exclusive cabin space for oversized equipment, and the bidding prices for heavy lift ships and roll on/roll off cabins have increased. The basic shipping costs for rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers have significantly increased. The price of crude oil has risen along with the situation in the Taiwan Strait, and the inland supporting costs such as trailer and dock lifting and reinforcement have also increased synchronously. The comprehensive logistics cost of equipment export has greatly eroded the profit margin of enterprises.
The US military strikes cover surveillance, port communication, and air defense facilities along the Iranian coast, causing frequent impacts on the power and dispatch systems of ports along the Persian Gulf coast, and limiting loading, unloading, customs clearance, and storage support services. Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other mainstream transit ports in the Middle East rely on the strait to carry out ship turnover. After the sharp decline in direct ships, the storage capacity in the port area has become saturated, resulting in demurrage and container demurrage costs for rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers waiting to be unloaded. Large equipment storage yards are scarce, and long-term outdoor storage can lead to rusting of the machine body and loss of hydraulic components, resulting in additional protection and maintenance costs. At the same time, the transportation capacity of cross-border land transfer channels in the region is limited, and the plan of relying on Oman and Saudi Arabia's inland road diversion equipment has low single traffic volume, which cannot digest a large number of export orders for pile foundation equipment.
The crisis in cross-strait shipping has pushed up the comprehensive construction costs of global infrastructure projects. Overseas owners in the Middle East and North Africa have compressed their infrastructure investment budgets, and the demand for rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers has cooled down. The logistics timeliness is unstable and the cost is uncontrollable. Overseas buyers tend to split large batch orders and switch to small batch procurement. Export enterprises frequently adjust their production, packing, and booking processes, and the advantage of large-scale shipments disappears. Some small and medium-sized distributors have temporarily suspended their equipment procurement plans, observing the situation of the shipping channel and waiting for freight rates to fall. The overseas circulation speed of pile foundation equipment has slowed down, and the growth of short-term export orders in the industry is under pressure.
To hedge against the risk of a single shipping route, engineering machinery export logistics providers are gradually building a multi-mode diversion system. On the one hand, optimize the layout of routes in North Africa and Southeast Asia, and reduce dependence on the Persian Gulf waterway by transiting through ports on the west side of the Red Sea and ports in East Africa; On the other hand, we will expand the land sea intermodal transportation plan, relying on ports in Oman and Saudi Arabia to unload ships and transport them by road to construction sites in various Gulf countries. In response to the characteristics of large components such as rotary drilling rigs and pile drivers, logistics companies have locked in long-term heavy lift vessel cabins in advance, reserved inland oversized transportation fleets, and adjusted equipment packaging and reinforcement standards to reduce the probability of cargo damage during long-distance detours, in order to adapt to the long-term unstable shipping environment in the Middle East.
If the US and Iran continue military strikes and restrictions on cross-strait navigation persist, the foreign trade industry of pile foundation equipment needs to establish a normalized risk response mechanism. Enterprises can lock in medium and long-term ocean freight price agreements in advance to share the impact of freight rate fluctuations; Optimize order scheduling rhythm, avoid staggered shipments to avoid cabin competition; Negotiate flexible delivery cycles with overseas clients and agree on delay exemption clauses in advance. Simultaneously expanding into emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, dispersing the risk of concentrated dependence on Middle Eastern routes, offsetting the dual impact of logistics and sales caused by single channel turbulence through market diversification, and stabilizing the global circulation system of large-scale engineering equipment.
