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Ship Universe Weekly

It was a busy week at Ship Universe. You may notice we’ve added a new publishing format called Signals for quick, focused updates on changes that can directly and immediately impact shipping operations, routes, rates, and risk.

Also, don't forget to check out our new 2026 in-depth Maritime Calendar for upcoming maritime events, meetings, webinars, and training. Full coverage below.

This Week’s Reports

Jan 9, 2026 The Pros and Cons of Automated Mooring Systems
Automated mooring is becoming a real operational lever, tying together safety at the ship-shore interface, berth productivity, and more consistent call execution.
Jan 8, 2026 The 35 Major Shipping Incidents in 2025
A timeline-style reality check: 2025’s steady drumbeat of disruptions across ports, ferries, container ships, tankers, piracy, and high-consequence near-misses.
Jan 7, 2026 Top 30 Ship Financing Banks Worldwide
A clear list of major ship-finance lenders worldwide, useful for benchmarking who is active in the market and where owner capital tends to come from.
Jan 6, 2026 Marine Cranes: Ultimate Guide (2026)
A buying-focused guide that breaks down crane types, specs, and use-cases so “deck crane” doesn’t turn into an expensive mismatch once you’re operating.
Jan 5, 2026 Port Turnaround Time: 8 ways to improve speed and success
Practical ways to reduce small handoff delays that quietly destroy schedules, from ETA discipline and berth planning to documentation flow and service sequencing.

This Week’s News

Jan 9, 2026 Venezuela tanker crackdown timeline: U.S. seizures, “oil control” messaging, and the immediate shipping knock-ons
A fast-moving compliance and routing story: interdictions/seizures, policy messaging, and the near-term impact on “ghost fleet” behavior, loadings, and Atlantic positioning.
Jan 9, 2026 Early-Year Rate Tape Turns Up: Carriers Push FAK/GRIs as Capacity Discipline Returns
Container rates opened the year with a jolt as the Drewry WCI jumped 16% week-on-week to $2,557 per 40ft, with carriers lifting FAK levels and pushing GRIs on key trades.
Jan 9, 2026 A Two Billion Dollar VLCC Reset for Frontline
A sell-and-replace fleet move aimed at resetting the VLCC cost curve: eight 2015–2016 ECO ships sold for $831.5m (Q1 2026 delivery window) while nine replacement VLCCs are lined up.
Jan 8, 2026 U.S. Pullback From Global Bodies Sends a Risk Signal Through Shipping
More governance shock than single-rule change: a U.S. withdrawal move is being read as a medium-term risk signal for coordination, enforcement, and policy volatility that shipping planners have to price in.
Jan 8, 2026 Saam FSU wakes up: Ura Bay becomes an active handoff point in Russia-linked LNG logistics
Tracking signals point to renewed activity around the Saam floating storage unit in Ura Bay (Kola Peninsula), a reminder that logistics nodes can re-activate quickly in sanctions-shaped LNG flows.
Jan 8, 2026 Black Sea Drone Hit Damages Suezmax Near Turkey
A drone/USV incident reportedly damaged the Suezmax Elbus off Turkey with no injuries or pollution, but it still raises immediate voyage-risk, routing friction, and insurance posture questions in the region.
Jan 7, 2026 Seizure at Sea as U.S. Boards and Seizes Russia-Flagged “Marinera”
An interdiction chase ends in a boarding and seizure, adding another real-world datapoint on how quickly sanctions enforcement can turn into a routing and counterparty-risk event.
Jan 7, 2026 $2B Venezuela Crude Pivot Talk: U.S. Ports Back in the Picture
A proposed U.S.-bound lane for Venezuelan crude is already forcing a rethink of Atlantic positioning and compliance throughput, with the key question being repeatability of load-and-lift cadence.
Jan 7, 2026 Marinera Escort Escalation Puts Shadow Fleet Risk Back on the Radar
The Marinera pursuit escalates from enforcement into state signaling, putting “shadow fleet” operating risk, protection dynamics, and escalation pathways back into day-to-day commercial planning.
Jan 7, 2026 MSC keeps buying as secondhand spree tightens charter supply while rates cool
Continued secondhand buying signals a longer-horizon capacity view: the effect is less one headline deal and more a steady tightening of charter supply across sizes that matter for network coverage.
Jan 6, 2026 V.Group Absorbs Njord to Scale Fuel-Saving Tech Across Managed Fleets
Ship management is becoming a bigger decarb lever because it sits where operating decisions get made, and this acquisition aims to scale efficiency workflows across managed fleets.
Jan 6, 2026 Venezuela’s Tanker Trade Splits in Two Lanes
Venezuela’s seaborne oil picture runs in parallel: a narrow U.S.-authorized flow alongside a broader sanctions-linked lane, each with different compliance friction and voyage-planning consequences.
Jan 6, 2026 Busan to Rotterdam on the Northern Sea Route Goes from Talk to Trial
A state-backed trial voyage plan would send a ~3,000 TEU-class boxship from Busan to Rotterdam during the 2026 navigation season, keeping the NSR container lane conversation alive.
Jan 6, 2026 Russia’s Arctic LNG Winter Problem as Too Few Ice-Capable Carriers to Keep Cadence
A hard winter constraint shows up in operations: limited ice-capable LNG carrier availability can stall exports quickly as storage fills, tightening the logistics window.
Jan 5, 2026 Scorpio Locks In Five Years of LR2 Cover at $29,000 a Day
A five-year time-charter cover play at $29,000/day on two 2015-built LR2s, a useful datapoint on forward product-tanker confidence and earnings visibility.
Jan 5, 2026 Venezuela’s “Dark Mode” Tanker Departures Put Caribbean Trading Back on Edge
Caribbean routing and compliance tension rises as reporting points to a wave of loaded, sanctions-linked tankers departing Venezuela with AIS behavior and counterparty risk back in focus.
Jan 5, 2026 Aground After a Drone Hit: Shadow-Fleet Tanker Qendil Tests Turkey’s Response Playbook
A grounding off Turkey following earlier reported strike damage puts response playbooks, spill-prevention posture, and scrutiny of sanctioned-linked tonnage back in the operational spotlight.
Jan 5, 2026 Baltic subsea cable hits are reshaping the operating rules in the region
A run of cable incidents is shifting the Baltic conversation from repairs to movement scrutiny, attribution risk, and tighter operating expectations for vessels moving through sensitive corridors.

This Week’s Signals

Jan 9, 2026 U.S. Escalation at Sea
A visible step-up in at-sea enforcement against sanctioned tanker activity, highlighted by the interdiction and seizure of the Venezuela-linked tanker Marinera (formerly Bella-1) in the North Atlantic.
Jan 8, 2026 Drewry Rate Tape Jump
Drewry’s World Container Index (WCI) rose 16% week-on-week to $2,557 per 40ft, with sharp headhaul lane increases signaling carriers have regained early-year pricing leverage.
Jan 7, 2026 Arctic Container Trial Push
A government-backed South Korea pilot plan would run a Busan–Rotterdam container voyage via Russia’s Northern Sea Route, positioned as a feasibility test and data-gathering step.
Jan 7, 2026 Suez Still Avoided
Continued avoidance of the Suez/Red Sea corridor is showing up as “Cape default” network behavior and persistently depressed transits rather than a quick return to pre-disruption routing patterns.
Jan 7, 2026 Deepwater Port Approval Shift
A noticeable shift in how quickly U.S. deepwater port projects are moving from “under review” into concrete approval milestones that unlock construction and commercial next steps.
Jan 6, 2026 Arctic LNG ice-class bottleneck
Arctic LNG flows are increasingly gated by a small pool of ice-class LNG carriers; when availability tightens (winter ops, repairs, sanctions friction), cargo timing slips and transshipment workarounds multiply.

This Week’s Tech

Jan 9, 2026 Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships Made Simple: (2026 Update)
The 2026 MASS story is supervised autonomy and remote support becoming normal on specific routes, while regulation and liability slowly catch up to what operators are already deploying.
Jan 8, 2026 Maritime Cyber Security Solutions made Simple: 2026 Update
Maritime cyber is getting less “IT-only” and more operations reality, with solution stacks designed for degraded connectivity, mixed-vendor OT, and constant change in onboard systems.
Jan 7, 2026 Remote Vessel Operations (ROC 2026 Guide)
Remote operations is shifting from demo to operating model as more fleets treat the shore-based ROC as a real part of the vessel’s day-to-day execution, not a side project.
Jan 6, 2026 LEO Satellite Internet for Ships (2026 Guide)
LEO connectivity is pushing ships toward “always-on” networks, where the real shift is not just speed, but lower latency and more dependable links that change what crews can actually run onboard.
Jan 5, 2026 Advanced Modeling Made Simple: 2026 Guide
Advanced modeling is becoming a practical lever for fewer surprises, as teams use scenario testing across speed, routing, weather, hull/prop condition, and carbon-cost exposure.

This Week’s Company Spotlights

Jan 9, 2026 OpenTug Review: A single operating system for barge moves
Built for inland and coastal barge logistics where execution still runs on calls, emails, and spreadsheets, and the real pain shows up when you need repeatable, trackable moves at scale.
Jan 8, 2026 ABS Group Review: Turn compliance pressure into a cleaner operating system
A fit when engineering and risk work has to stand up to class, flag, charterers, insurers, and internal governance, with deliverables that translate compliance pressure into cleaner operating control.
Jan 7, 2026 BNP Paribas Ship Financing Review
The kind of capital partner owners tend to use when the goal is structured financing with documentation, risk tooling, and cycle-resilience, not just “get a loan and move on.”
Jan 6, 2026 Pascal Technologies Review: Air lubrication and AirHull tech for real-world savings
A performance-first approach where the only thing that matters is measured savings on real hulls, using air-based lubrication and hull-efficiency methods designed to survive everyday operating conditions.
Jan 5, 2026 Ocean Infinity Review: Faster subsea intelligence, lower offshore exposure
A strong fit when the hard part is getting high-quality subsea data without burning time, fuel, and headcount offshore, leaning on robotics and software to reduce exposure and improve cadence.

This Week’s Events

Jan 9, 2026 Korea Ocean Expo 2026 Review
A tight, operations-forward marine and maritime safety show in Korea’s capital region, useful for a quick read on what’s being deployed now across safer operations and smarter onboard practices.
Jan 8, 2026 Breakbulk Europe 2026
Where project cargo turns into booked moves: Rotterdam pulls EPCs, shippers, forwarders, carriers, ports, terminals, and heavy-lift specialists into one place to compare real execution and capacity.
Jan 7, 2026 Seawork 2026 Review
A workboat week that stays grounded in reality: equipment on the water, pontoons you can walk, and operator conversations that quickly get to performance, uptime, and cost.
Jan 6, 2026 Green Marine “GreenTech” 2026 Review
A working-style sustainability conference where practical implementation and hallway conversations often matter as much as the sessions for operators, ports, and solution providers.
Jan 5, 2026 Posidonia 2026 Review
A relationship-heavy shipping week in Athens where owners, operators, yards, OEMs, class, finance, insurers, and maritime tech converge, making it strong for deal flow and long-cycle partnerships.

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