Splash247: El Niño puts Pacific and Indian Ocean ports on alert

Published by Splash247

Ports on the Pacific coasts of North and South America are likely to face some of the greatest operational disruption from the strengthening El Niño, while terminals across South Asia, East Africa, Australia and Indonesia face a very different mix of flooding, falling water levels and tighter dredging windows.

A new Sofar Ocean study warned that the 2026 El Niño was rewriting the historical assumptions used to set port drafts, tidal windows, dredging schedules and mooring limits. NOAA expects the event to peak between October and December, with a 97% chance it persists into early spring 2027. Most forecasting models point towards a very strong event.

The Pacific coast of the Americas appears most exposed to higher water, bigger waves and storm-related shutdowns.

California is particularly vulnerable. Major El Niño events can raise local sea levels by six to 10 inches, while winter storms can push ocean levels two to three feet above normal, with still greater increases where storms coincide with King Tides.

South American ports face a similar threat. Peru has already experienced anomalous swells this year with waves two to three times normal heights, prompting maritime authorities to close all ports in the south, half of those in the central zone and several northern facilities.

Chile’s long, exposed Pacific coastline is another obvious pressure point. Nearly 98% of Chilean trade moves by sea, making even short weather-related terminal closures commercially significant. Sofar highlighted how Chilean oil terminals have increasingly shifted from manual wave readings to real-time monitoring to make mooring decisions.

Across the Pacific, however, El Niño produces almost the opposite problem.

Ports in eastern and northern Australia and Indonesia face lower rainfall and falling river and coastal water levels, potentially reducing under-keel clearance and compressing dredging windows. The trade-off is fewer tropical cyclones and generally calmer conditions around Australia, creating better maintenance and construction opportunities.

South Asia could be particularly difficult to manage because El Niño does not generate a uniform response. Parts of western and northeastern India have experienced flooding, while southern, eastern and central areas have faced drought. Ports within the same country could therefore simultaneously face excessive water and lost draft.

East Africa sits on the wetter side of the equation. Sofar identified Mombasa and Dar es Salaam among ports facing greater rainfall, bringing increased flooding, drainage loads and sediment movements that could complicate dredging.\

By contrast, Atlantic and US Gulf ports may emerge as relative winners, with El Niño normally suppressing Atlantic hurricane activity.

The challenge for ports is not simply harsher weather but conditions moving away from the historical baselines around which infrastructure and operating procedures were designed.

Climate-related disruption already costs the world’s 1,320 most important ports an average 1.4 days of downtime annually, while the worst-exposed 5% lose more than five days.

For this El Niño, the greatest pressure is likely to fall on Pacific-facing ports in the Americas through surge and flooding, and on shallow or rainfall-dependent ports across Asia through lost draft.

As Sofar’s Captain Ketan Bhatia put it: “The greatest operational risk is rarely the weather itself. It is making decisions based on assumptions that no longer hold.”