- Issued
- Data cutoff
- Horizon
- 197 days
- Resolves by
- Next review
- Epistemic class
- Forecast (modeled, not observed)
- Evidence status
- reported
How this resolves
Resolves TRUE if the Suez Canal Authority's published December 2026 monthly transit count is at least 25% below its published December 2023 count. If SCA figures are unavailable at the resolution date, IMF PortWatch's Suez transit series is the designated fallback, and the same 25% test is applied to it. If neither publishes a comparable figure, the forecast resolves UNRESOLVABLE rather than being scored on a substitute measure.
Resolution source: Suez Canal Authority navigation statistics; IMF PortWatch as designated fallback
Assumptions
- Transit volumes were reported to be running roughly 50-60% below pre-disruption levels through early 2026, leaving a large gap to close within the horizon.
- Carrier routing decisions are made on multi-month planning and insurance cycles, so even a decisive security improvement would take months to show in transit counts.
- Announced partial service resumptions represent a fraction of total pre-disruption traffic.
Leading indicators to watch
- Monthly Suez Canal Authority transit counts
- War-risk insurance premium quotes for Red Sea transits
- Whether major carriers (Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, MSC) move from partial to default Suez routing
What would make this wrong
- A comprehensive, durable security settlement in the Red Sea prompting all major carriers to restore default Suez routing.
- The Suez Canal Authority materially changing how it counts or publishes transits, breaking comparability with the 2023 baseline.
Weak-source disclosure
Competing evidence
Credible sources point in different directions here. Both readings are shown rather than averaged into a single false number.
- Evidence toward normalization: several major carriers announced partial or planned Suez service resumptions during the first half of 2026, and trade coverage described a cautious return beginning. — Freight and logistics trade press — Red Sea routing coverage
- Evidence toward persistence: the same coverage reports most carriers retained Cape of Good Hope routing as default, with an industry expectation of continued diversions into 2027, and transits still running far below baseline in early 2026. — Freight and logistics trade press — Red Sea routing coverage
Known data gaps
- Warconomy could not directly retrieve a current Suez Canal Authority monthly figure at the cutoff date; the 50-60% depression figure is taken from secondary coverage of SCA data rather than read off the SCA release itself.
Methodology
Asks whether something that is currently disrupted will still be disrupted by a certain date, on the reasoning that shipping and insurance decisions unwind slowly.
Uncertainty: Coarse probability band reflecting how far the current value sits from the threshold relative to its recent volatility.
Validation: Resolved against the named publishing authority's own figure at the resolution date. Baseline: 'persistence' (assume today's state simply continues), which this model must beat to be worth running.
Full model card: Threshold persistence v1.0.
Sources
| Source | Type | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Suez Canal Authority — traffic and transit statistics | Official | www.suezcanal.gov.eg/English/Navigation/Pages/NavigationStatistics.aspx |
| IMF PortWatch — Red Sea Attacks Disrupt Global Trade | Intergovernmental | www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2024/03/07/red-sea-attacks-disrupt-global-trade |
| Freight and logistics trade press — Red Sea routing coverage | Industry | www.searates.com/blog/post/suez-canal-and-red-sea-shipping-in-2026-risks-routes-and-operational-impact |
All forecast fields (accessible table)
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Forecast ID | fc-2026-07-18-suez-transits-depressed |
| Target variable | Suez Canal monthly transit volume relative to its pre-disruption (2023) baseline |
| Target event | Suez Canal monthly transits for December 2026 remain at least 25% below the comparable pre-disruption 2023 monthly baseline |
| Prediction | very likely (roughly 80-95%) |
| Issue date | 2026-07-18 |
| Data cutoff | 2026-07-18 |
| Horizon (days) | 197 |
| Resolution date | 2027-01-31 |
| Resolution source | Suez Canal Authority navigation statistics; IMF PortWatch as designated fallback |
| Status | active |
| Epistemic class | forecast |
| Evidence status | reported |
| Model | threshold-persistence-v1 v1.0 |
| Hindcast | No |
Machine-readable: /forecasts/data.json