Orders that are to be shipped to the Persian Gulf are no longer accepted. The sawmill, pulp and paper industries are severely affected by this stop to shipping. Lumber, pulp and paper are piling up at loading ports and production facilities. Fees are also accruing for containers that are sitting in ports.
For Austrian sawmills, the impossibility of transports to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, which are located across the Strait of Hormuz, is not the only problem. Due to the war, transit through the Suez Canal has also been halted. As a result, lumber containers that are destined for East Africa or Middle Eastern countries, like Pakistan and India, now leave the port of Koper and are then transshipped in North African ports, e.g. in Morocco, onto carriers. These carriers then sail around the Cape from Europe towards Asia. This, too, is associated with higher costs.
