Ocean freight forwarding from India

FCL — full container load

A 20ft, 40ft or 40ft high cube taken end to end on your own booking. We hold contracted allocation with the main lines calling western India, so the booking is confirmed against a named vessel and voyage rather than a rate that expires before the container is stuffed.

For heavy commodities such as tiles, granite and engineering castings, the constraint is rarely volume. It is the road payload limit in India and the axle limit at destination. We plan the stuff to the lower of the two so the container is not stopped at a weighbridge with your cargo inside it.

LCL — less than container load

Weekly consolidations from Ahmedabad and Mundra into the main European, Gulf and Far East hubs. LCL is billed on whichever is greater, one cubic metre or one tonne, which is why light bulky cargo and dense cargo behave so differently on the same invoice.

Before you book, run your carton dimensions through our CBM calculator. Around eleven to thirteen cubic metres, a full 20ft container usually becomes cheaper than LCL — and that crossover point is the single most common thing exporters get wrong.

What we handle before the vessel

Booking and allocation against a named vessel and voyage. Container release and empty pick-up. Factory stuffing supervision or CFS stuffing. Shipping bill filing and customs. VGM declaration. Bill of lading drafting, checking and release. Certificate of origin and destination-specific documents.

The lanes we run most

North Europe through Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and Felixstowe. Mediterranean through Genoa, Barcelona and Valencia. US east coast through New York and Savannah, US Gulf through Houston, and US west coast through Los Angeles and Long Beach. The Gulf through Jebel Ali, Dammam and Sohar. East and South-East Asia through Shanghai, Ningbo, Port Klang and Singapore. East and West Africa through Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Lagos.

Shipping to the Gulf from Gujarat while the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted

Position as at 28 September 2026. The India-Gulf container trade is not running normally. Ports that were routine six months ago are suspended for most cargo, one of the region's main gateways is being served indirectly, and the charge stack has items on it that did not exist at the start of the year. Everything below is drawn from the carriers' own published advisories and is dated to them.

Re-check before you cost anything. Maersk has issued 49 operational updates on this situation this year, the most recent on 23 September, and CMA CGM 14. A position that is correct this week can be superseded next week, and Maersk's own advisory says its contents are subject to change because the situation is volatile. Treat the figures here as evidence of the shape of the charge stack, not as a quotation.

Where your container can actually go

From Maersk's Middle East Operational Update 49, dated 23 September 2026. This advisory sets the position by cargo type, which matters more than the port list, because the same port can be open for one commodity and closed for another.

• Dry cargo. Suspended for the UAE except Khor Fakkan and Jebel Ali, for Iraq, and for Dammam and Al Jubail. Open with restrictions at Jeddah, King Abdullah, Jordan, Salalah, Sohar, Khor Fakkan for imports, Jebel Ali via landbridge, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.
• Reefer. Suspended for Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Dammam, Al Jubail, King Abdullah, Jordan, and the UAE except Khor Fakkan and Jebel Ali via landbridge. Open at Salalah, Sohar and Khor Fakkan for import only.
• Dangerous goods. Suspended across the UAE including Khor Fakkan, at Salalah, and for Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. Jordan imports and exports are open with cross-border transit suspended; Jeddah is open for local consignees only; Sohar is open except IMO class 5.1. Transhipment via Salalah is permitted only to destinations outside the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq.
• Out-of-gauge. Suspended for the UAE including Khor Fakkan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Aqaba, Jeddah, King Abdullah, Dammam, Al Jubail and Oman. Transhipment via Salalah to destinations outside the upper Gulf.
• In-gauge. Suspended for Iraq. Open at Bahrain, Aqaba, Kuwait, Salalah, Sohar, Qatar, Jeddah, King Abdullah, Dammam, Al Jubail and Khor Fakkan.

CMA CGM's Advisory #14 of 18 September 2026 describes a consistent picture from a second, independent carrier: Jeddah, King Abdallah Port, Yanbu, NEOM, Fujairah and Khor Fakkan open with restrictions, most other Gulf ports closed or limited, and multimodal corridors through Jeddah, Sohar, Aqaba and Mersin in use.

Three things follow that matter more than any single rate.

First, "Jebel Ali" on your booking may not mean a vessel call at Jebel Ali. Update 49 lists Jebel Ali as reachable via landbridge, which is to say discharge elsewhere and carriage overland. Different transit time, different handover points, different places for something to go wrong, and a different answer to the question your buyer will ask about delivery.

Second, the working route into the region is a transhipment route, and its availability depends on what is in the box. A Gujarat-origin container is increasingly a two-leg movement. Every extra leg is another connection to miss and another set of local charges to absorb.

Third, and most sharply: if your cargo is dangerous goods, ask about acceptance before you ask about price. On Update 49 dangerous goods are suspended across the UAE including Khor Fakkan, and suspended at Salalah as a destination, with DG transhipment via Salalah permitted only to destinations outside the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq. For a chemicals or dyes shipment from Gujarat to the upper Gulf, that is a question about whether the carrier will take the box at all, not about what the surcharge will be.

Neither carrier states plainly whether Strait of Hormuz transits are running. Maersk prices a transit fee without confirming transit status; CMA CGM describes operations as active with contingency measures. We are not going to resolve that for you when the carriers themselves have not, which is precisely why the routing question has to be settled per booking rather than assumed from last year's lane.

The Gulf charge stack, named

These are the items appearing on Gulf quotations now, over and above base ocean freight and the ordinary local charges. The figures are the carriers' own, on the dates shown.

From Maersk's Update 49, 23 September 2026:

• Emergency freight rates of USD 1,800 per 20ft dry, USD 3,000 per 40ft dry, and USD 3,800 per reefer, special-equipment or dangerous-goods container. These are stated to cover alternative routing, storage and additional charters.
• Strait of Hormuz transit fee of USD 1,000 per container, described as covering war-risk insurance premiums and crew risk compensation.
• In-transit storage at USD 25 per TEU per day beyond the 14 days included in the emergency freight rate, plus reefer monitoring and plug-in where applicable.
• Jebel Ali transhipment storage at USD 25 per TEU per day from the day of discharge, reefer plug-in at actuals. Note the difference: this one runs from discharge, not after a free period.
• Empty container drop-off charges, now tariffed by location. Jebel Ali USD 1,000 per 20ft, USD 1,200 per 40ft and USD 1,200 per reefer; Kuwait USD 400, 800 and 800; Bahrain free for dry and USD 1,250 for reefers.

From CMA CGM's Advisory #14, 18 September 2026:

• Emergency Fuel Surcharge, effective 1 October 2026, at USD 265 per TEU dry and USD 320 per TEU reefer on head hauls, and USD 75 and USD 90 on back hauls and intra-regional moves. This is the latest of several EFS revisions on this lane during the year.
• Dangerous goods surcharge, in force since August 2026, running to USD 5,000 to 5,200 per container on some routings depending on origin and destination.

Read the dangerous-goods numbers twice if you ship chemicals or dyes out of Gujarat. A four-figure per-container DG surcharge is not a line item you absorb quietly, and on some routings it exceeds the emergency freight rate on the same box, assuming the box is accepted at all.

What a disrupted Gulf lane does to your costing and your contract

A quotation has a shelf life now, and it is short. When surcharges are revised by advisory on a rolling basis, a rate held for a customer for thirty days is a position you have taken on the carrier's next advisory. Say what your quotation is valid until, and say which surcharges are excluded and will be passed through at the rate ruling on the date of shipment.

Check who carries the surcharge under your delivery term. On CIF and other C-terms you have contracted to pay the freight, and a surcharge introduced between contract and shipment lands on you, not your buyer, unless your contract says otherwise. On FOB it lands on the buyer. This is the single most expensive thing to get wrong on a Gulf shipment this year, and it is decided by a term agreed months before the box moves. The CMA CGM fuel surcharge taking effect on 1 October is the immediate case in point: shipments contracted in September and shipping in October cross that line.

Do not forget the empty. Drop-off charges at several Gulf locations are now tariffed at up to USD 1,200 a box on Maersk's current advisory. If your costing stops at the discharge port, it stops too early.

The 14-day storage clock is tighter than it reads, and at Jebel Ali on transhipment cargo there is no free period at all, because storage runs from the day of discharge. On a transhipment routing, free time can be consumed by the connection rather than by the consignee. Our page on demurrage and detention sets out how those clocks run and where they are commonly misread.

Ask for the tariff, in writing. In the India-Gulf trade the charge you owe is governed by your contract of carriage and the carrier's tariff, not by a regulator. For context on what documented surcharge practice looks like elsewhere, the US Federal Maritime Commission stated on 11 March 2026 that a tariff rate, charge or rule must be in effect at the time the carrier receives the cargo, and that at least 30 days should separate publication from the effective date of an increase unless special permission is obtained. The FMC does not regulate India-Gulf shipments and that rule is not yours to invoke on this lane, but it is a reasonable benchmark to hold a quotation against, and it applies directly to any onward US-bound leg.

What we check before quoting a Gulf shipment

Scapex is a freight forwarder and customs broker based in Ahmedabad. We have no office, no agent-of-record, no staff and no facility anywhere in the Gulf. We book, document and clear the cargo from Ahmedabad and work with the carrier's own network at the far end. On a disrupted lane that distinction matters, so we would rather state it than let you assume otherwise.

Before we put a number on a Gulf movement we establish:

1. Whether the cargo is dangerous goods, first, because on the current advisories that decides acceptance and not merely price. Our project cargo and container specifications pages cover the equipment side.
2. Whether the named destination is actually being served for that cargo type, or served indirectly, and if indirectly, where the box is discharged and who moves it inland.
3. Which surcharges are in force on the shipment date, from the carrier's current advisory, not from the last quotation we issued.
4. What free time you actually have once a transhipment leg is in the routing, and where the storage clock starts.
5. What the empty will cost to return, at the drop-off location in the routing.
6. Which delivery term you have sold on, so the surcharge exposure sits where your contract puts it and not where it surprises you.
7. Whether the documentation matches the routing. A discharge port that differs from the contractual destination has to be reflected properly, and customs clearance at origin has to align with it.

If you are shipping to the Gulf out of Mundra or from Ahmedabad this month, send us the cargo details and the delivery term and we will come back with the current routing position and a costed option. Our freight forwarder charges page explains the ordinary charge structure that sits underneath all of the above.