Disruptions are making Southern Africa more important to global shipping and energy markets without making the region more prosperous.

Countermeasures to offset reduced energy exports shipped from Persian Gulf countries through the Strait of Hormuz are now failing, with significant global impacts, including for Africa.

Saudi Arabia has prioritised its East-West pipeline to bypass the Strait of Hormuz by moving crude to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. But Houthi targeting of Saudi-linked shipping has made onward passage through Bab el-Mandeb riskier. In September, drone attacks temporarily shut down the East-West pipeline itself. It has since restarted at reduced rates, but remains vulnerable.

Since 2023, Middle Eastern maritime disruption has pushed many shipping companies to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope. The shift has been particularly pronounced in container shipping, with most major Asia-Europe services avoiding the Red Sea.

At first, this seemed to offer an economic opportunity for states along the Cape route, driven by greater demand for bunkering, port calls and maritime services. However, increased Cape-route traffic has not delivered a Southern African economic windfall, with most diverted vessels having had little need to call at regional ports.

South Africa’s ports in particular struggle with congestion, operational inefficiencies and the reputational legacy of years of under-investment. Recent improvements should start to pay off, but for now Cape Town and Durban still remain near the bottom of the World Bank’s latest global container-port performance rankings.

This presents a striking paradox. Southern Africa should be benefiting from busier shipping lanes and surging international demand for its offshore energy. Instead, countries must prepare for uncompensated maritime security risks while enduring persistent fuel price inflation and global energy pressures.

Heavier Cape-route traffic raises demand for regional maritime safety and security, requiring greater expenditure from Southern African states.

More crude oil, petroleum product and liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers around the Cape also increase the potential for a serious maritime disaster. This includes growing eastbound energy flows from suppliers in the Americas and West Africa to Asian markets, not simply vessels diverted from Middle Eastern routes. More vessels require greater capabilities in surveillance and reconnaissance, search and rescue, pollution response and emergency towing and salvage.

South Africa is establishing coordination and response mechanisms, such as for oil spills. The country and its neighbours need to be prepared for major casualties and pollution incidents.

At the same time, reduced Persian Gulf supplies are driving interest in alternatives to satisfy global demand for crude oil, refined products and LNG. This matters for Southern Africa for three reasons.

First, disruption increases the importance of African producers capable of supplying international markets outside the Persian Gulf. This could create new demand for existing West African producers and fast-track new Southern African oil and LNG projects, some with offshore infrastructure exposed to security threats.

Major offshore developments stretch from Angola and Namibia to Mozambique and Tanzania. Their development concentrates huge economic value in offshore fields, subsea infrastructure, floating production, storage and offloading vessels and floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) vessels, pipelines and coastal export terminals.

In northern Mozambique, Coral South is already producing LNG offshore, Coral North will add further floating LNG capacity, and TotalEnergies resumed work on its US$20-billion Mozambique LNG project in January. These projects will substantially expand onshore and offshore production and export infrastructure in an area facing a persistent terrorist insurgency, a possible risk of piracy, and the prevalence of major maritime smuggling routes.

Second, many African economies remain highly exposed as energy importers. Around three-quarters of the continent's crude oil production is exported, while a significant share of the refined petroleum products it consumes is imported. At the same time, the disruption is costing African economies dearly through higher oil, fuel and freight costs, which ultimately push up food and consumer-goods prices.

Further fuel price hikes could lead to renewed protests as seen in Kenya, Comoros and Mozambique in May. That month, Southern African foreign ministers acknowledged that the Middle East conflict was driving up food and fuel prices and heightening energy security risks, requiring urgent, long-term regional planning.

High Asian energy demand is also intensifying competition for alternative supplies. Asian buyers are in a position to bid for West African crude and refined fuels that would otherwise have supplied African markets. These changing trade flows also affect shipping costs: moving West African oil to Asia forces tankers into longer voyages, as ship owners are increasingly drawn to routes offering the highest freight rates.

This pushes up the overall cost of chartering a ship to transport oil, meaning that Southern Africa’s proximity to producers such as Nigeria and Angola does not guarantee cheaper supplies. Asian demand for West African and American energy also reduces tanker availability elsewhere, further raising the cost of shipping fuel to the region.

Therefore, Southern Africa’s growing importance in maritime and offshore energy does not necessarily benefit the region as a whole. An exporting country can gain from greater demand yet remain exposed to high prices and refined fuel shortages, while an importing neighbour bears the cost without any gain.

Finally, maritime disruptions also complicate Southern Africa's longer-term climate policy choices. Persistent insecurity affecting international oil and gas imports and exports should strengthen the case for reducing fossil fuel dependence through renewable energy technologies.

But higher prices and international demand for geographically diversified oil and gas supplies pull in the opposite direction. African countries will face strong pressure to capture this demand, potentially locking in new fossil fuel investments and dependencies and slowing progress towards global climate commitments.

Without a stronger regional response, Middle Eastern disruption will continue to make Southern Africa more important to global shipping and energy markets, without making the region any more secure, prosperous or resilient to that same disruption.

Written by Timothy Walker, Consultant, ISS Pretoria