(Recasts, adds context)

By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Piracy off Somalia is driving up delivery times for goods and resources and could tighten inventories of vital commodities, ship industry sources said.

Taiwan's TMT, one of Asia's biggest shippers, on Tuesday joined a growing list of operators openly diverting their tankers via South Africa because of fears over attacks in the Gulf of Aden.

The 20-strong fleet is regularly used to ferry crude oil from the Middle East to consumers in Europe.

Ship brokers said decisions by big tanker firms to skirt Suez and take the longer journey round the Cape of Good Hope would add an extra 15 days to ferry oil from the Gulf to Mediterranean refiners: twice the normal time and distance.

Delivering crude oil and petroleum products from the Gulf to consumers in northern Europe would add an extra 14 days to journeys on top of the typical 19 days through Suez, they said.

Maritime industry groups have warned of major consequences for international seaborne trade, including higher transport costs and the maintenance of larger inventories.

"There will be some knock-on effect on the inventory situation. But it does vary from commodity to commodity," said Rob Lomas of Intercargo, an industry group representing ship owners hauling dry commodities.

"In the case of crude oil, almost all of the 2.2 million barrels per day exported from the Middle East to Europe currently goes through the Suez Canal," E.A. Gibson ship brokers said in a report highlighting the risk to oil markets.

It said at least 300,000 bpd of distillate fuel, such as diesel and heating oil, flows from the Gulf and Asia to Europe via the canal.

Consumers in North and South America are unaffected because operators usually route their merchant fleets round the Cape anyway.

Shippers carrying dry commodities and container firms carrying finished goods are also quietly circumventing Suez, industry sources say, though details are sketchy.

The attacks continued this week with officials saying on Tuesday that Somali pirates hijacked a Yemeni ship loaded with steel. [ID:nLP513584]

TMT joins Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk <MAERSKb.CO>, Norwegian chemical tanker group Odfjell, the world's largest tug operator Svitzer, and a large liquefied petroleum gas carrier who have already already taken the decision to re-route. (Editing by Anthony Barker)

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