China Container Volumes Reset the Bar as Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan pass 90M TEU
Despite trade tensions and policy noise, China’s box volumes are still climbing. Shanghai has crossed the 50 million TEU mark for 2025 a month earlier than last year, while Ningbo-Zhoushan has passed 40 million...
Capesize Earnings Break $45,000 As Year-End Tightness Bites
Capesize earnings have surged to their strongest levels in roughly two years, with the Baltic C5TC benchmark jumping around 16% in a single day to just under $45,000 per day and more than triple...
Zodiac Maritime lines up $1.6bn VLCC and Boxship Wave at Jiangsu New Hantong
Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Maritime has committed to a multi segment newbuilding program of about $1.6 billion at China’s Jiangsu New Hantong Ship Heavy Industry, covering crude and container capacity for delivery from the second...
Pirates: LPG Crew Kidnapping off Equatorial Guinea revives Gulf of Guinea Piracy Risk
A Portugal-flagged LPG carrier, CGas Saturn, was boarded by armed pirates about 50 nautical miles west of Mbini, Equatorial Guinea, while sailing toward Malabo. Security reports indicate that most of the crew were taken...
Black Sea Risk Escalates As Kremlin Floats Retaliation On Allied Shipping
Recent statements from Moscow have pushed Black Sea risk up a notch. The Kremlin has condemned a surge of attacks on Russian commercial vessels as “piracy” and warned it may consider retaliatory measures against...
Wind Sails to be Deployed on Supertankers in 2028: Idemitsu Bets On Norsepower VLCC Pair
Idemitsu Tanker has ordered two methanol ready VLCC newbuilds in Japan that will each carry a pair of Norsepower rotor sails from delivery at the end of 2028, marking the first time VLCCs will...
South Africa’s cartel case shakes Asia–Africa box trades as Eight Liner Giants Face GRI probe
South Africa’s Competition Commission has sent a decade-long price-fixing case to the Competition Tribunal that targets the local units of eight major container lines. Regulators say the carriers coordinated general rate increases on routes...
Ship Finance Shifts as Leasing Multilaterals and Blue Bonds Rebalance Capital
Recent announcements from Chinese leasing houses, Indian policymakers, multilateral banks and bond markets all point in the same direction, capital is still available for shipping, but it is becoming more segmented and more demanding....
Ship Recycling Facing Weak Prices and Tough Rules
Ship recyclers are ending 2025 in a strange mix of tight supply and weak pricing. Subcontinent yards in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are struggling to keep offers near 400 dollars per LDT as steel...
Turkey’s Quiet Pivot On Russian Oil Shakes Up Med Crude Trades
Turkey has sharply cut its purchases of Russia’s flagship Urals crude in November, trimming volumes by around 100,000 barrels per day to about 200,000 bpd, according to Kpler and LSEG data. That is a...
Methanol’s Big Test: DNV Says The Fuel Is Ready, But The Numbers Still Hurt
DNV’s new white paper on methanol fuel makes a simple but important point for shipowners: technically, methanol is now a workable, scalable fuel for deep-sea ships, with engines and systems at high readiness and...
War Risk Insurance Surges For Black Sea Voyages
War risk insurance costs for Black Sea voyages have moved up again after Ukrainian naval drones hit the sanctioned tankers Kairos and Virat on their way to Novorossiysk. Brokers report per-voyage war premiums for...
Black Sea Risk Repriced: Ukraine’s Drone War Puts Shadow Fleet And CPC Exports In The Crosshairs
Ukraine has moved its Black Sea campaign into a new phase. Naval drones have now hit two sanctioned shadow fleet tankers heading to Novorossiysk and damaged key infrastructure at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal...
OPEC+ Holds The Line: Pause On 2026 Oil Hikes Keeps Bunkers In A Narrow Range
OPEC+ ministers met Sunday and chose to keep their existing production plan in place, confirming that there will be no fresh output increases in the first quarter of 2026. The group has already brought...
Green Corridors Multiply as Cost Wall Slows Real Zero Emission Routes
The latest progress report from the Getting to Zero Coalition and Global Maritime Forum shows green shipping corridors growing to 84 active initiatives worldwide, with 25 new routes launched this year and four now...
Signs of a Controlled to Suez / Red Sea
Improved security signals and a fragile Gaza ceasefire have eased Red Sea attack risk, and Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority is actively inviting carriers to move back from the Cape of Good Hope to the...
Older Hulls, New Pressure as Aging Fleets Force Hard Choices for Shipowners
Global fleets are getting older just as ordering picks up and new recycling rules bite. Recent analysis shows container, tanker and bulk segments all carrying a heavy share of mid-life and elderly ships, while...
UK locks in 78% North Sea tax as Industry Warns of 66 Billion Dollar Investment Hole
The UK government has confirmed that the Energy Profits Levy will stay in place until March 2030, keeping the headline tax rate on North Sea oil and gas profits at around 78 percent. Industry...
Marseille-Fos Triples Its Bet: €1.3bn Plan To Be South Europe’s Main Gate
The port of Marseille-Fos has signed off on a strategic plan for 2025 to 2029 that authorizes up to €1.3 billion in investments, about three times what it spent in the previous five years....
Oxford Maps a $14bn Chokepoint Bill as Narrow Sea Lanes Reshape Trade Risk
A new Oxford University study in Nature Communications puts concrete numbers on something shipowners already feel: disruptions at key maritime chokepoints affect around $192 billion of seaborne trade each year, resulting in roughly $14...