Shipping Disruption Tracker - War & Supply Chain

Monitor global shipping disruptions, maritime chokepoints, port closures, and commodity price impacts in real-time. Get structured intelligence reports per region with risk levels, port status, news headlines, and commodity prices — built for supply chain managers, commodity traders, and logistics teams.

What does Shipping Disruption Tracker do?

This actor monitors 6 major maritime chokepoints and trade routes (Strait of Hormuz, Red Sea, Suez Canal, South China Sea, Panama Canal, Black Sea), checks the operational status of key ports in each region, aggregates the latest shipping disruption news, fetches commodity prices, and computes a risk level per region. All results are structured JSON ready for dashboards, alerts, or AI agent consumption.

170+ ships are trapped in the Persian Gulf as of March 2026. The Strait of Hormuz — through which 20% of the world's petroleum flows — is partially blocked. Supply chain managers need real-time visibility, not $100K enterprise subscriptions.

What data does it extract?

For each monitored region, you get:

• region — name of the maritime region or chokepoint
• riskLevel — CRITICAL, HIGH, ELEVATED, MODERATE, or LOW
• status — human-readable situation summary
• affectedPorts — list of ports with operational status (Operational, Disrupted, Suspended/Closed, Delayed/Congested)
• affectedPorts[].port — port name
• affectedPorts[].country — country
• affectedPorts[].status — current operational status
• affectedPorts[].statusDetail — explanation of status assessment
• affectedPorts[].recentHeadlines — latest news about this port
• commodityPrices — current prices for tracked commodities (oil, gas, gold, etc.)
• commodityPrices[].price — numeric price
• commodityPrices[].priceFormatted — formatted price string
• newsHeadlines — latest disruption news articles for the region
• newsHeadlines[].title — article title
• newsHeadlines[].source — news source (Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.)
• newsHeadlines[].publishedAt — publication date
• newsCount — total articles found
• monitoredAt — timestamp of this report

Use cases

1. Supply Chain Risk Management — Monitor chokepoints that affect your shipping routes. Get alerts when risk levels change from MODERATE to HIGH or CRITICAL. Route shipments around disrupted areas.
2. Commodity Trading — Track oil, natural gas, and gold prices alongside the disruption events that move them. The Strait of Hormuz alone affects 20% of global petroleum supply.
3. Logistics & Freight Planning — Know which ports are operational before routing shipments. Avoid costly delays by checking port status before booking.
4. Maritime Insurance Assessment — Monitor war risk zones for maritime insurance pricing decisions. Risk levels correlate directly with insurance premium surcharges.
5. Automated Supply Chain Monitoring — Run this actor hourly or daily via Apify schedules, or let AI agents query it on-demand through the Apify MCP server for always-current intelligence.

How to use

1. Select Regions to Monitor or leave empty for all 6 default regions
2. Select Commodities to Track or leave empty for defaults (Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Gold)
3. Toggle news, commodity prices, and port status modules as needed
4. Click Start — one report per region appears in the output dataset

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
regions	string[]	No	All 6 defaults	Maritime regions to monitor
commodities	string[]	No	Oil, Gas, Gold	Commodities to track prices for
includeNews	boolean	No	true	Aggregate shipping disruption news
includeCommodityPrices	boolean	No	true	Fetch current commodity prices
includePortStatus	boolean	No	true	Check port operational status
maxNewsPerRegion	integer	No	15	Max news articles per region (5-50)
proxyConfiguration	object	No	—	Apify proxy configuration

Default monitored regions

Region	Key Ports	Why It Matters
Strait of Hormuz	Bandar Abbas, Fujairah, Ras Tanura, Kuwait, Hamad	20% of global petroleum
Red Sea	Jeddah, Port Sudan, Aqaba, Djibouti	Major Europe-Asia route
Suez Canal	Port Said, Suez	12% of global trade
South China Sea	Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung	$5.3T annual trade
Panama Canal	Balboa, Cristobal	5% of maritime trade
Black Sea	Odessa, Novorossiysk, Constanta	Key grain export route

Output example

{
    "region": "Strait of Hormuz",
    "description": "Critical chokepoint for 20% of global petroleum. Active military operations zone.",
    "riskLevel": "CRITICAL",
    "status": "Critical disruptions detected. Ports suspended/closed: Kuwait Port. Active military operations or blockade indicators present.",
    "commodityPrices": {
        "Crude Oil": {
            "price": 92.10,
            "priceFormatted": "$92.10",
            "source": "Google Finance",
            "fetchedAt": "2026-03-11T12:00:00.000Z"
        }
    },
    "affectedPorts": [
        {
            "port": "Bandar Abbas",
            "country": "Iran",
            "status": "Suspended/Closed",
            "statusDetail": "Critical disruption indicators detected in recent news",
            "recentHeadlines": ["Iran closes Bandar Abbas port amid US strikes"]
        },
        {
            "port": "Fujairah",
            "country": "UAE",
            "status": "Operational",
            "statusDetail": "No disruption reports found"
        }
    ],
    "newsHeadlines": [
        {
            "title": "US Navy escorts tankers through Hormuz as tensions escalate",
            "source": "Reuters",
            "publishedAt": "Mon, 10 Mar 2026 14:30:00 GMT",
            "url": "https://news.google.com/..."
        }
    ],
    "newsCount": 15,
    "monitoredAt": "2026-03-11T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Pricing

This actor uses Pay Per Event pricing:

• Per region report: $0.008 per region

Monitor all 6 default regions for $0.048 per run. Run hourly for 24/7 monitoring at ~$35/month.

FAQ

Q: How does it determine port status? A: Port status is assessed by analyzing recent news about each port for disruption keywords (blockade, suspended, closed, military, diversion, etc.). It's news-based intelligence, not direct port authority feeds.

Q: Can I add custom regions? A: Yes. Enter any region name and it will create a search-based monitor using relevant maritime keywords.

Q: How current is the data? A: News and commodity prices are fetched in real-time each run. For 24/7 monitoring, set up an Apify schedule to run hourly.

Q: Does it work with AI agents? A: Yes. Compatible with the Apify MCP Server for Claude, GPT, CrewAI, and LangChain supply chain monitoring workflows.

Support

Found a bug or have a feature request? Reach out on the Apify platform or open an issue.