Canals not the biggest shipping choke points

Busy hub: An oil tanker anchoring close to the Malacca Strait’s coastline. More than a quarter of global trade goods transport passes through this shipping lane. — Filepix

WHEN traffic through the Suez Canal ground to a halt in 2021, the extraordinary cost and disruptions to global commerce seemed overwhelming.

But 8,000km from the canals of Suez and Panama lie even more important shipping lanes, choke points that could cripple global trade should any disaster befall them.