Dubai-based port operator DP World reported that its half-year profits had fallen by nearly 60 percent on Thursday, in part due to the ongoing attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.
He said: “The year 2024 has been marked by a deteriorating geopolitical environment and disruptions to global supply chains due to the Red Sea crisis. While the near-term trading outlook remains uncertain due to macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds, the resilient financial performance of the first half ... positions us well to deliver stable full-year adjusted profits.”
Bin Sulayem did not specify the exact effects Houthi attacks have had on the company, which is a government-owned shipper that in recent years removed itself from the Nasdaq Dubai stock exchange.
Despite the drop in profits, he claimed that DP World’s balance sheet “remains strong, and our operations continue to produce substantial cash flow.”
Since November, the Yemeni rebel group, widely believed to be backed by Iran, have been targeting shipping through the Red Sea after siding with Hamas against Israel over the war in Gaza.
The Red Sea is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, with approximately $1 trillion worth of goods flowing through it annually.
Houthi drone and rocket attacks have disrupted shipping as well as sparking the U.S. Navy’s most intense combat since the Second World War.
The rebels claim that their attacks are limited to targeting ships with Israeli, American, or British links as part of their campaign to “end the war,” but, in reality, many of the vessels which have been subject to assault have had tenuous connections to the conflict at best, and in some instances nothing to do with it at all.
Shipping companies have begun directing their captains to sail around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to avoid the region entirely, which in turn, has affected shipping through Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port, the home of DP World and the largest manmade harbor in the world.
