Before the Iran war, shipping Austrian spruce timber to Qatar was a relatively routine process. The timber, commonly used on construction sites for concrete support and basic framing, would typically be sourced in Austria, shipped to Dubai’s Jebel Ali port, transferred to a feeder vessel and delivered to Hamad Port in Qatar in around 45 days.
That route has now been severely disrupted. Instead of moving directly through the usual maritime corridor, cargo must be offloaded, transported overland and reloaded onto different vessels, adding thousands of dollars in extra costs and significantly extending delivery times. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has created major logistical difficulties not only for oil flows, but also for ordinary commercial goods moving across the region.
Construction timber becomes part of a wider trade disruption
Among the goods caught up in the disruption are Austrian spruce beams, commonly known in the building trade as standard 2x4s or white wood. While these are not a strategic commodity, supply interruptions can still slow construction activity and push up costs.
A building materials supplier in Qatar, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that when U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran began on February 28 and triggered a new phase of conflict in the region, he already had 17 containers of white wood in transit.
Each container was carrying around 2,850 beams of Austrian spruce, with a value of roughly 15,000 euros. The shipment departed from the Croatian port of Rijeka as expected, but instead of heading to Jebel Ali, it was redirected to Khor Fakkan on the UAE’s east coast in order to avoid passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
From there, the timber was trucked to Abu Dhabi and then reloaded onto feeder vessels bound for Doha. According to the supplier, this rerouting added a surcharge of about $3,600 per container, while some shipping companies quoted surcharges as high as $5,000 per container. That is more than triple the normal cost of sending a 40-foot container of timber from Europe to Qatar.
Even after being diverted, the timber had still not reached Qatar, and the supplier said delivery was expected to take another one to two months.
At the same time, several containers of plywood ordered by the same supplier were loaded onto feeder vessels at Jebel Ali, spent weeks at sea and were eventually returned to port. The situation highlighted how little control importers can have once shipments are already moving through unstable trade routes.
Basic goods become more expensive
Before the conflict, the supplier said a standard 2×4 would typically be sold for around QAR 23 to 25 per piece. Due to rerouting costs and longer transit times, the same product is now being sold for around QAR 35 to 37 per piece.
Future shipments may become even more expensive. One possible alternative under consideration is routing timber through Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Jeddah. However, that would mean higher shipping costs and then an additional 1,500-kilometre overland journey across the Arabian Peninsula to Qatar, raising the cost per beam even further.
The disruption is not limited to timber. Other supply chains have also been significantly affected. Before the conflict, logistics company Geodis had planned to transport medicine from the UK to Dubai in around four days by air. Under current conditions, the same journey, now relying on both land and sea transport, is expected to take around 40 days.
For onions moving from western India to a warehouse in Dubai, what was previously a one-week trip has reportedly turned into a three-week process at double the cost, according to Ravi Punjabi, Managing Director of Avalon General Land Transport in the UAE.
Gulf states face uneven levels of exposure
Some countries in the region are better positioned than others to absorb the shock. Dubai and the wider UAE benefit from having ports such as Fujairah and Khor Fakkan on the Arabian Sea, outside the Gulf itself. This gives them an alternative maritime gateway.
For countries such as Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, however, the situation is much more difficult because they depend far more heavily on Gulf shipping routes and access through the Strait of Hormuz.
Governments across the Gulf have started coordinating measures to ease the bottlenecks. During a meeting with regional counterparts last month, Saudi Transport Minister Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser announced several steps, including allowing empty refrigerated trucks from neighboring Gulf countries to enter Saudi Arabia and creating shared storage and redistribution zones at King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam.
Dubai has also introduced what it described as a green corridor with Oman. This allows goods redirected to Omani ports to be trucked directly into the UAE with accelerated customs procedures and also supports exports from the UAE to global markets through Omani ports.
Delays and price pressure likely to persist
Despite these responses, transport executives say the alternatives remain imperfect. Cargo flows into Dubai and onward to other Gulf capitals are expected to remain slower and more expensive for the foreseeable future.
Since the end of February, prices for food, personal care items and industrial supplies have already risen by 5% to 10% in some parts of the region, and further increases remain possible if the shipping disruptions continue.
Geodis executive Eric Martin-Neuville noted that products requiring cooling, including certain food products and medicines, are especially vulnerable under these strained conditions. He pointed out that port infrastructure can only support a limited number of refrigerated containers at a time because electricity connections are finite.
For many businesses, the latest disruption adds to a longer chain of uncertainty. Although 45 days had become the normal transit time for white wood shipments from Europe before February, there was an earlier period, before the Red Sea Houthi attacks began in 2023, when the same cargo could reach the Gulf in around a month. Even though those attacks have since eased, most shippers continue to avoid the area by routing around the Cape of Good Hope.
In Qatar, the building materials supplier said he still has enough white wood inventory to cover several months of demand. However, he will soon need to place new orders without knowing which shipping routes will remain available or what the eventual transport costs will be.