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Special Report: Not all gateways are equal

The US–Iran war continues to disrupt shipping. Capacity across the five GCC gateways has not recovered, and rates have decoupled from it. Jeddah, Mersin, Aqaba, Khor Fakkan and Sohar now diverge on reliability.

Shippers should select ports on performance, not rates alone.
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5GCC Report-1

The gap between gateways is already 158% wide. Waiting to route around it isn't a strategy.

Cancellations now account for 26% of lost capacity across the five Persian Gulf gateways absorbing Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz diversions — up from 23% during the acute shock phase. Spot rates ex-China sit in a wide $5.2k–8.2k/FEU band, but price doesn't rank these ports. Performance does.

Xeneta's latest gateway report benchmarks Jeddah, Mersin, Aqaba, Khor Fakkan and Sohar across four phases — from the pre-war baseline through an August 2026 forecast — and turns the data into a routing playbook for your next tender.

What's inside:

  1. Port-by-port performance across all five gateways: delivered capacity, on-time arrivals and average delay, benchmarked from pre-war through routinization
  2. Network connectivity, deployed capacity and carrier concentration data — including which carrier controls each corridor and by how much
  3. A cancellation-vs-delay breakdown showing which failure mode is driving loss at each port, so the fix matches the cause
  4. Q3 2026 procurement actions and a routing verdict for every gateway — route through, buffer, or find an alternative

Use the form to get your copy of the report →

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The perfect time to act was yesterday. The second-best time is today.

Audit which gateways you're exposed to. Benchmark reliability, not just rate. Build Q3 tenders around the routing verdicts, not last quarter's contracts.

Xeneta closes the gap between what carriers commit to and what actually arrives.

Access the latest gateway intelligence report for free (form above). Alternatively, if you need tailored insight into which gateways to route through, buffer, or replace across your own network, our Advisory team can help — analysis built around your contracts, carriers, and procurement timeline.

Speak to our advisory team

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