Is the Suez Canal Open?
As of July 3, 2026: yes — the canal is open and was never closed in the 2026 crisis. The real story is the volume: oil flow via Suez and the SUMED pipeline runs at roughly half its 2023 level (4.9 vs 8.8 million barrels a day, EIA), because carriers still avoid the Red Sea approach and sail around Africa instead. Open is not the same as recovered.
Suez, Bab el-Mandeb, and the confidence problem
The canal, the SUMED pipeline, and the Bab el-Mandeb strait form one route: the Red Sea corridor between Asia and Europe. Since the attacks on shipping that began in late 2023, the corridor's problem has not been closure but confidence — the water is passable, the insurance and the boardrooms are not convinced. Bab el-Mandeb oil flows fell from 9.3 to about 4.2 million barrels a day; attacks paused after the October 2025 ceasefire, yet the 2026 Hormuz war kept the whole region's war-risk pricing alive and gave carriers a second reason to stay on the Cape route. Suez recovers when the spreadsheets say the Red Sea is boring again, and that number moves slowly.
Transit-count data for this page comes from IMF PortWatch via our pipeline — released weekly with roughly a week's lag, which is why this is a status page, not a live tracker. For the corridor's freight-market pulse (Suez transits, bunker premiums), see the Hormuz desk's freight panel; for the chokepoint system as a whole, Malacca and Hormuz.
Suez and the Red Sea: common questions
Is the Suez Canal open right now?
Yes — the canal itself has stayed open throughout the 2026 crisis and was never blocked. The constraint is upstream of the canal: many carriers still route around Africa rather than run the Red Sea approach, so traffic and oil volumes remain far below their pre-2024 norm. The most recent tracked figure is 44 transits/day (Jun 28, PortWatch data, roughly a week's lag).
How much oil goes through the Suez Canal now?
About 4.9 million barrels a day moved via the Suez Canal and SUMED pipeline in the first half of 2025 (EIA) — down from 8.8 million in 2023, before the Red Sea attacks rerouted much of the trade around the Cape of Good Hope. That halving is the real story behind every 'is Suez open' question: open, but hollowed out.
What is happening at Bab el-Mandeb?
The strait at the Red Sea's southern gate saw oil flows fall from 9.3 million b/d in 2023 to about 4.2 million in early 2025 (EIA). Houthi attacks on shipping paused after the October 2025 ceasefire, but carrier confidence has not fully returned, and the 2026 Hormuz war kept war-risk pricing alive across the region.
When will Suez traffic return to normal?
The honest answer: when carriers believe the Red Sea is durably safe, which is a confidence question more than a physical one. Watch three tells: major container lines announcing Red Sea returns, war-risk premiums for the corridor unwinding, and weekly transit counts climbing back toward pre-2024 levels rather than plateauing.