Good morning, nice people. It’s a small-world kind of morning. Talabat is getting a new owner, sort of — Uber’s USD 14.8 bn bid lands on Delivery Hero, and Talabat comes along two ownership layers down. Ownership’s getting more layered — and so is the freight bill. Carriers are stacking peak-season surcharges while ins’ers do the same for hull coverage, as Hormuz war-risk premiums climb. Speaking of costs piling up, Sudan’s fuel queues are getting some relief: Turkey's Argaz just signed on to build an LPG terminal at Suakin.

A new route into East Africa

Egypt is eyeing a set of logistics links with Tanzania, including a Safaga-Dar es Salaam shipping route and a Cairo-Dar es Salaam multimodal corridor, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said during a visit to the East African country, according to an Ittihadiya statement. Egypt is also ready to help expand the Port of Dar es Salaam as part of a wider regional plan linking Tanzania to its landlocked neighbors. The two governments signed two MoUs spanning transport, electricity, and renewable energy, though no timeline or investment figures were attached to the broader proposals.

Why it matters: A Safaga-Dar es Salaam line would extend the trade network Egypt has been building across the Red Sea and East Africa, which already includes a maritime pact with Eritrea, a foothold at Djibouti's Doraleh port, and transit waivers covering six East African countries, Tanzania among them. Plugging into Dar es Salaam would open Egyptian access to Tanzania’s links to landlocked markets, including Zambia, the DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda — a combined market of more than 250 mn people.

GO DEEPER- We took a closer look at Egypt’s bid to turn its Red Sea ports into redistribution hubs for East African trade in our recent deep dive.

Clearing the way inland

French shipping group CMA CGM has asked the Investment Ministry to let dry ports clear cargo as final customs destinations — the status sea ports hold — and to revisit transit-certificate procedures, steps that would benefit the group’s own dry-port and sea terminal investments, according to a cabinet statement. Egyptian dry ports can already clear cargo — what CMA CGM wants is for a container to finish clearance there without first clearing at the seaport, cutting a step for goods moving inland.

The request aligns with CMA CGM’s whole-chain footprint. Last year, it won competition-authority clearance for a 35% stake in the USD 60 mn October Dry Port project, where it markets rail connections linking Alexandria and Ain Sokhna with the dry port. Final-clearance status would make October Dry Port a more useful node in that chain. The group is also a partner in Alexandria’s Tahya Misr multipurpose terminal and in the Red Sea Container Terminal at Sokhna — which opened this year with initial capacity of 1.7 mn TEUs.

IN CONTEXT- The government has spent the year loosening transit rules to capture Gulf and East Africa cargo rerouted by the Hormuz crisis. It dropped advance ACI registration for Gulf-bound transit cargo moving through Nuweiba, Ain Sokhna, and Safaga in March, before extending the exemption to cargo bound for six East African markets last month. Transit trade is up 40% since March, with the Europe-Egypt-GCC route gaining traction during the war. Customs also moved last week to activate the UN-backed International Road Transport system by appointing the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce as its national guarantor — this would allow trucks to move goods across borders under a single customs document.

Market watch

Oil prices rose 2% this morning — lifting Brent above USD 90 on Hormuz supply concerns, Reuters reports. Brent crude futures increased USD 2.37 to USD 90.19 / bbl by 02.41 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) gained USD 1.71 to USD 84.20 / bbl.

The Baltic Index loses ground: The Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk index — which tracks rates for the capesize, panamax, and supramax vessel segments — fell 3.1% to 2,752 points on Friday. The capesize index slid 5.6% to 4,097 points, while the panamax dipped 0.4 to 2,248 points. The smaller supramax rose 0.4% at 1,737 points.

The Drewry World Container Index fell 2% to USD 4,547 per 40-ft container last week, according to the latest index readings. The decline came as transpacific and Asia-Europe rates moved lower, led by drops on Shanghai-Rotterdam (3%), Shanghai-Genoa (3%), and Shanghai-Rotterdam (1%). US-Iran tensions and threats to Bab Al Mandeb shipping continue to raise risks. Peak-season activity is beginning to ease ahead of the 24 July US tariff deadline, although capacity management and geopolitical disruptions continue to support rates.

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