The era in which companies could plan supply chains around the assumption of uninterrupted maritime access is over. That is the central finding of a major new report published today by Roland Berger, one of the world's leading global strategy consultancies. The report — which examines 24 of the world's most strategically important maritime passages — concludes that what was once a logistical consideration has become a fundamental strategic business risk.

The Scale of the Dependency

The numbers alone explain why this matters. Sea freight accounted for 84% of global freight volume in 2025, compared with 9% for road, 6% for rail and less than 1% for air. That dominance is expected to grow: global sea freight volumes are projected to rise from 103.5 trillion tonne-kilometres in 2025 to 256.4 trillion by 2050 — an increase of nearly 150% in 25 years.

No alternative transport mode can replicate this capacity or cost efficiency at global scale. As the report's authors state: "Rail, road, inland waterway transportation, and air freight each are indispensable — but none can substitute for the sheer capacity and economics of maritime trade at global scale."

Yet this entire system flows through a remarkably small number of narrow waterways. The report identifies the Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandeb, Panama Canal and Strait of Malacca as the most critical passages globally. The Strait of Malacca alone handles approximately 24% of all global seaborne trade.

Hormuz: A Disruption That Travelled Far Beyond Shipping

The ongoing crisis at the Strait of Hormuz — triggered by military escalation involving Iran — provides the report's most striking case study. Shipping traffic through the passage fell from around 90 to 120 vessels per day to fewer than ten following the initial disruption. Vessel attacks, soaring insurance premiums and the effective closure of key shipping lanes compounded the crisis rapidly.

But Roland Berger documents how the consequences spread far beyond energy markets. Gulf exports of naphtha — a critical feedstock for petrochemical production — were severely disrupted, creating shortages across Asian manufacturing. Producers in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan reduced operating rates, declared force majeure or temporarily shut down facilities. Industries dependent on plastics, synthetic fibers, packaging and other chemical inputs felt the effects across multiple continents.

The report also highlights a new development in September 2026: the capture of the Red Sea coast by Iran-backed Houthi forces and the accompanying takeover of Bab el-Mandeb — the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Roland Berger notes this illustrates how quickly a single chokepoint disruption can cascade into a multi-chokepoint crisis, interrupting manufacturing thousands of kilometers away and exposing the vulnerability of highly specialized global value chains.

Three Threats Beyond Military Conflict

Roland Berger identifies three categories of chokepoint risk that companies must plan for — not just military conflict:

1. Accidents: The 2021 Ever Given incident blocked the Suez Canal for just six days. More than 430 vessels backed up at both entrances, holding up over $9 billion in trade per day. Allianz estimated the blockage cut annual global trade growth by 0.2 to 0.4 percentage points — and the congestion took weeks to clear.

2. Climate events: Panama Canal drought conditions in 2023–2024 forced the canal to halve its daily transits for months. The Panama Canal carries roughly 6% of global maritime trade and 40% of US container traffic. A single weather event turned a permanent infrastructure asset into a bottleneck overnight.

3. Geopolitical leverage: Governments are increasingly treating control over strategic maritime infrastructure as an economic weapon. Indonesia's 2026 proposal to introduce transit fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Malacca illustrates how access to established trade routes can become subject to political and fiscal considerations — even without any physical disruption.

What Companies Must Do Now

Roland Berger's recommendations are direct and actionable. The traditional supply chain model — built around minimizing inventories, consolidating suppliers and relentlessly reducing costs — needs to be fundamentally reconsidered. The report calls on companies to:

  • Map chokepoint exposure down to individual products and second-tier suppliers — not just top-level trade lanes
  • Secure alternative shipping capacity in advance through diversified carrier relationships and flexible routing agreements
  • Build targeted inventory buffers for products with high chokepoint exposure and limited substitutability
  • Diversify suppliers across different maritime routes to avoid single-chokepoint dependency
  • Establish early-warning systems that monitor geopolitical, climate and operational risks across all critical passages

As the report states: "The era in which maritime chokepoints could be treated as background infrastructure — reliable, invisible, and outside the strategic remit of most organizations — is over."

For freight forwarders, logistics managers, supply chain directors and shippers globally, the Roland Berger report is a clear signal: resilience is no longer a contingency plan. It is a core business strategy — and the cost of not having one is measured in factory shutdowns, empty shelves and broken contracts, not just delayed shipments.

🔑 Key Takeaways — October 30, 2026

  • 84% of global freight moves by sea — and no alternative mode can replace its capacity or economics at global scale. The world's entire trade system depends on a handful of narrow passages.
  • Hormuz traffic fell from 90–120 vessels/day to fewer than 10 — and the consequences spread from energy markets to petrochemicals, manufacturing and consumer goods across Asia and beyond.
  • Bab el-Mandeb now also under threat — Houthi takeover of the Red Sea coast in September 2026 created a simultaneous two-chokepoint crisis for Gulf-bound trade.
  • Three risk categories — not just war — accidents (Ever Given), climate (Panama drought) and geopolitical leverage (Malacca transit fee proposal) are all live threats that require active planning.
  • The $9 billion/day lesson from Ever Given — six days, 430 ships backed up, months of congestion. One accident. One canal. The system has no margin for error.
  • Roland Berger's verdict is clear — companies that still treat maritime access as a given are carrying unpriced strategic risk. Resilience must become core supply chain strategy, not a contingency.
  • Action required now: Map your chokepoint exposure by product, secure alternative routing capacity and build targeted inventory buffers before the next disruption — not after it.

Source: Roland Berger — "Maritime Chokepoints: The New Fault Lines of Global Trade" | Published: October 30, 2026