Two Saudi-Loaded Supertankers Hit Near Hormuz as Visible Commodity Traffic Falls to Just Five
Two VLCCs carrying a combined 4 million barrels of Saudi crude were struck by unidentified projectiles within minutes of each other while sailing outbound through the Strait of Hormuz late Monday, sharply escalating an...
Can a Frigate Survive 100 Cheap Drones? The Systems Behind Next-Generation Shipboard Counter-UAS
Shipboard counter-UAS systems report Only if it stops treating drones as single targets. The next frigate needs a layered counter-UAS stack that can find, classify, jam, shoot, burn or confuse drones without emptying its...
COSCO’s $3 Billion Boxship Order Turns Fleet Renewal Into a Capacity Race
COSCO Shipping Holdings has committed nearly $3 billion to another round of containership newbuildings, ordering 18 vessels from Chinese shipyards under the CSSC group. The package includes 12 LNG dual-fuel 22,000 TEU class ships...
Can a Fiber-Optic Cable Replace Another Coastal Radar? 8 Numbers Behind Distributed Acoustic Sensing for Dark-Ship Detection
DAS dark-ship detection A fiber cable is not a coastal radar. That may be the whole point. Coastal radar gives the watch floor a surface picture. Distributed Acoustic Sensing turns a subsea fiber into...
Panama Canal Loosens Booking Rules as $5.3M Auction Bid Exposes Slot Squeeze
The Panama Canal has temporarily rewritten key parts of its Neopanamax reservation system as reduced water availability tightens transit capacity and competition for guaranteed passages intensifies. Effective August 30 for transit booking dates beginning...
Should Every Warship Carry a Metal 3D Printer?
Shipboard additive manufacturing report Should every warship carry a metal 3D printer? The better question is where the fleet needs metal manufacturing capacity. A carrier, amphib or tender can be a production node. A...
Your Ship’s Cranes Are Now a SOLAS Issue: 10 Costs Owners Should Budget Before the Next Renewal Survey
SOLAS 2026 Lifting Appliances Your Ship’s Cranes Are Now a SOLAS Issue: 10 Costs Owners Need in the Renewal-Survey Budget Most ship cranes do not become a problem because the hook suddenly cannot lift....
Hormuz Tanker Traffic Collapses Again as U.S.-Iran Strikes Put Shipping Back in the Line of Fire
Hormuz shipping is back in the firing line after a new round of U.S.-Iran attacks shattered the latest attempt to stabilize one of the world’s most important energy corridors. U.S. forces struck Iranian launchers...
Cruise Food Waste Machines Are Becoming a Shipboard ROI Battle
Cruise Food-Waste Machine ROI 26 machines on one cruise ship is not a gadget story. It is a waste-routing story. A big passenger ship does not have one food-waste problem in one room. It...
Austal Starts Third Heritage-Class OPC as $3.3B Coast Guard Program Accelerates in Mobile
Austal USA has started construction of its third Heritage-class Offshore Patrol Cutter, the future USCGC Ingham, at its Mobile, Alabama, shipyard, putting three of the Coast Guard’s next-generation offshore workhorses into production at the...
VLCC Rates Are Turning Into the Cleanest Signal in the Crude Tanker Market
VLCC Rate Market VLCC Rates Are Turning Into the Cleanest Signal in the Crude Tanker Market There are tanker markets where the headline rate tells you almost nothing, and then there is the current...
Sempra Starts Permitting 26-Mtpa Port Arthur LNG North Expansion That Could Double Gulf Coast Export Hub
Sempra Infrastructure has opened the federal permitting process for Port Arthur LNG North, a proposed four-train expansion in Southeast Texas that would add approximately 26 million tonnes per annum of nameplate LNG capacity, with...
Kongsberg Lands Full-Ship Systems Package for Solstad/SBM’s 4,000m Deepwater Newbuild
Kongsberg Maritime has secured a broad integrated-systems contract for the new multi-purpose deepwater installation and construction vessel being built for the 50.1% Solstad Offshore / 49.9% SBM Offshore joint venture at CIMC Raffles’ Haiyang...
FuelEU Methane Slip Measurement ROI – When Actual Engine Data Beats Default Factors
FuelEU methane slip ROI The default methane-slip factor is easy. It may also be expensive. LNG operators are now staring at a small percentage with a large commercial consequence. If the default Cslip factor...
Gulf Bypass Buildout Accelerates as Hormuz Risk Rewrites Energy Logistics
Gulf states are moving faster to build around the Strait of Hormuz as shipping risk, insurance pressure and uneven traffic recovery turn the region’s main chokepoint into a long-term infrastructure problem. The UAE is...
Can Waste Heat Extend a Destroyer’s Range? 8 Numbers Behind the Navy’s New DDG-51 Energy-Recovery Push
DDG-51 energy recovery report Can waste heat extend a destroyer’s range? Every destroyer engineer knows the stack is throwing away energy. The hard part is not proving heat exists. The hard part is turning...
Drewry WCI Slips as Container Rates Enter a More Uneven Phase
Drewry’s latest World Container Index update shows the container market cooling slightly after three straight weekly gains, but this is not a clean reset lower. The composite index fell 1% to $4,473 per 40ft...
Cruise Ships May Be Throwing Away More Heat Than Fuel
Cruise Waste Heat Recovery Cruise ships may be throwing away more heat than fuel. Every engine-room veteran knows the stack, coolers and condensers tell the truth. On a cruise ship, the hotel makes that...
Sempra Seeks Permits for 27 Mtpa Port Arthur LNG Expansion That Could Double Texas Export Capacity
Sempra Infrastructure has started the federal permitting process for Port Arthur LNG North, a proposed four-train expansion of its LNG complex on the Sabine-Neches Waterway in Southeast Texas. The new project is designed for...
Should Your Next Ship Still Be LNG Dual-Fuel? 10 Numbers to Run Before Signing a Newbuild Contract
2027 Newbuild Decision Should Your Next Ship Still Be LNG Dual-Fuel? 10 Numbers to Run Before Signing a Newbuild Contract Höegh Autoliners ordering six more LNG dual-fuel Aurora-class car carriers is the kind of...
IAEA Launches ATLAS to Bring Nuclear Power Back to Civilian Shipping as IMO Targets New Rules by 2030
Nuclear-powered merchant shipping moved a significant step closer to becoming an organized international industry on August 26 when the International Atomic Energy Agency launched ATLAS, Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea, in Washington....
Turbo Blower vs Screw Compressor for Air Lubrication Net Fuel Savings
ALS net fuel savings The blower load is where air lubrication savings become real, or disappear A ship can have a beautiful bubble carpet and still deliver a disappointing payback. The number that matters...
Prize Courts Return to the Maritime Risk Map as U.S. Targets Seized Tankers
The U.S. administration’s move to revive prize courts could become one of the most unusual legal developments in modern shipping. Prize law is not a normal sanctions tool, port-state-control action or civil forfeiture case....
Should Every ASW Frigate Carry Its Own Unmanned Sonar Boat?
ASW frigate and unmanned sonar report Should every ASW frigate carry its own unmanned sonar boat? Anyone who has worked around ASW knows the frigate is always balancing reach, noise, weather, helicopter availability and...
Black Sea Grain Pressure Builds as Sulina Queue Hits 70 Ships
The Black Sea grain corridor is under renewed pressure as vessels stack up near the Sulina Canal and Russian strikes continue to hit Ukraine’s port and grain export network. Reuters reported about 70 vessels...
Cruise Casino Technology ROI: The Square-Foot Case for Progressive Jackpots at Sea
Cruise Casino Technology ROI The next casino upgrade may not need more floor space. On a ship, every square foot has a job. The casino has to compete with bars, retail, lounges, restaurants and...
Oil Slides on Hormuz Talks, but Tanker Risk Still Owns the Market
Oil prices moved lower as Iran-Oman talks gave traders a new reason to price in a possible partial reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The selloff makes sense at the headline level: if a...
Amazon Leo Is Coming to Ships: Should Owners Add another Satellite Network or Wait?
Maritime LEO connectivity Amazon Leo gives shipowners a new option, but the smartest first move may be a pilot, not a fleetwide swap I would treat Amazon Leo as a strategic third-network candidate rather...
Maritime AI Moves Beyond Pilots as Fleetwide Rollouts, Autonomous Ships and Smart Ports Accelerate
Artificial intelligence is moving deeper into day-to-day maritime operations, with several significant deployments announced during August rather than another wave of small technology demonstrations. On August 26, Eastern Pacific Shipping said it would expand...
Your Ballast Water System (BWMS) is Getting Old: 10 Repairs That Signal It May Be Time for a Major Upgrade
Ballast Water System Upgrade Test Your Ballast Water System Is 10 Years Old: 10 Repairs That Signal It May Be Time for a Major Upgrade A 10-year-old ballast water management system can look compliant...