The article does a terrible job of explaining it, but this was a LNG ship.

As the gas heats, it will expand, boil off and be vented out. Meaning every additional day is more lost product.

This could be helpful for other ships though.

Typical losses with LNG are about 0.1-0.15% per day depending on the type of carrier. A round trip around the cape would add probably 20-25 days or so for a typical ship. More for slower ones. So, the price of that is 2-3% losses. The value of LNG fluctuates wildly in recent years. But it's not cheap. At the peak, a single ship could be carrying hundreds of millions $ worth of LNG. So, a few percent losses is quite significant.

Their shipping contracts may contain immense penalties for the shipments being late. Going around adds about 30 days to the trip.

Not to mention that there are fairly steep piloting fees for the Magellan strait. I wonder if USN carriers take on pilots when they navigate it or if they have a political exemption.

Ha. Like the people who take the long way to avoid sitting in traffic. Even if it takes longer, it "feels" better.

If it clearly takes longer, how could it possibly be better?

Because it doesn't cost $4M?

I though it was being compared to waiting in line. I get it now.