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...
AI Voyage Optimization & Weather Routing Made Simple: 2026 Update
AI voyage optimisation is basically the “co-pilot” sitting on top of weather routing, noon reports, and charter constraints. The latest platforms take high-frequency vessel data, weather and currents, fuel and carbon prices, CII/ETS exposure...
Shadow Fleet Growth Meets Indian Gatekeeping: Dark Tankers Face Tougher Insurance Checks off Paradip
The global “shadow fleet” that moves sanctioned crude has expanded into a parallel system of older, lightly regulated tankers, with estimates suggesting that roughly 16 percent of the crude fleet tied to sanctioned trades...
Azane Fuel Solutions Review: How to Bunker Ammonia
Azane Fuel Solutions sits in the middle of the “how do we actually bunker ammonia?” question. From its base in Norway, the joint venture between Amon Maritime and ECONNECT Energy is developing turnkey shore-based...
China’s LNG Buying Slump Hits 13 months as Tonne-mile Engine Cools
China’s seaborne LNG imports are set to fall year on year for the 13th straight month in November, with Kpler data (via Bloomberg and other outlets) pointing to about 5.81 million tons of arrivals,...
3d Printing on Ships Made Simple: 2026 Update
3D printing at sea is shifting from demo pieces to real downtime savers. By 2025–26, you’ve got naval ships and early commercial trials printing repair parts on board, while joint ventures like Pelagus 3D...
MSC Moves Inland in Bangladesh with Pangaon Play
Reports indicate MSC has secured a concession to operate an inland container terminal in Bangladesh, widely described as the Pangaon facility near Dhaka. The move links the country’s main seaport flows to a river-barge...
The 25 Most Overlooked Cost Levers in Ship Operations (That Aren’t Fuel or Crew)
Most owners spend their time on day rates, bunker costs, and crew budgets, yet a lot of quiet money moves through operational decisions that rarely make it into board packs. The 25 levers below...
Belgium’s Three-day Strike Chokes Antwerp-Bruges as pilotage paused, queues build, diversions rise
Belgium’s nationwide strike (Nov 24–26) has disrupted pilotage and traffic control on the North Sea coast, halting or severely restricting ship movements at Antwerp-Bruges and nearby gateways, while road, rail, and air transport are...
UK P&I and TT Club explore Giant Transport Mutual: cover, deductibles and renewal leverage in play
UK P&I Club and TT Club have confirmed that their boards are in early talks on a potential merger that would combine one of the largest ship liability mutuals with a major port and...
Maersk Stays Cautious on Suez Return as Red Sea Risks Linger
Maersk says it will resume using the Red Sea and Suez route only when conditions allow and has not set a firm date, despite signals from Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority about an early-December partial...
Anemoi Marine Technologies Review: Rotor Sails With Real-World Numbers
Wind is finally turning into a real line item on the bunker bill, and Anemoi Marine Technologies is one of the firms turning that wind into propulsion hardware shipowners can actually deploy. From its...
Maran Tankers Books Four VLCCs at Hanwha Ocean As Orders Keep Flowing
Maran Tankers has moved for four very large crude carriers at Hanwha Ocean. Hanwha’s exchange filing confirms a KRW 757.7 billion contract for four VLCCs with deliveries by November 2028, while trade press attributes...
Methanol as Fuel for Ships Made Simple: 2026 Update
Methanol is moving from conference slide to real bunker choice, especially in the container segment. Driven by the IMO 2023 greenhouse gas strategy and expected fuel standards, owners are ordering dual fuel ships that...
Breakbulk Middle east 2026 Dates: Get Ready for Breakbulk Week Dubai
Dubai’s project-cargo marketplace returns early 2026. Across two packed days, EPCs, shippers, forwarders, carriers, ports, and heavy-lift specialists meet in one hall to compare routes, capacity, risk, and 2026–27 bid calendars, where Middle East...
Coal Shipments Hit a 23-Year Low as Steel Output Slips
Coal cargoes into advanced economies are set to fall about 2% year over year in 2025 to a 23-year low, according to BIMCO. Weaker coking-coal demand from softer steel production and more power from...
Iran’s offshore barrel build: Floating Iranian oil hits highest since 2023
Iranian “oil on water” has surged to roughly 52 million barrels, the most since May 2023, with about half of those barrels parked off Malaysia. Tracker data links the jump to softer Chinese intake...
Singapore Locks Methanol Supply for 2026 with Clearer Fuel Path at the World’s Top Bunkering Hub
Singapore has appointed three licensed suppliers to start marine methanol bunkering from January 1, 2026, setting a firmer foundation for dual-fuel ships to lift in the world’s busiest refuelling port. The move follows successful...
2026 Port Cost Benchmark Book: What a “Normal” PDA Looks Like by Vessel Type and Region
Port costs are one of the last big spend areas in shipping that still get approved with too little context. In 2026, with freight margins more sensitive to carbon, fuel spreads, and schedule pressure,...
Macquarie moves on Qube in a $11.6B play that could reshape Australia’s logistics map
Macquarie Asset Management has lobbed a conditional, non-binding cash proposal to acquire Qube at A$5.20 per share, valuing the integrated ports and intermodal operator at an enterprise value of about A$11.6 billion. Qube has...
LA Gateway Jolt: ONE ‘Henry Hudson’ Fire Disrupts, Then Eases as Vessel Is Towed Offshore
A container fire aboard the ONE Henry Hudson triggered an overnight hazmat response at the Port of Los Angeles, with shelter-in-place orders for San Pedro and Wilmington and partial terminal slowdowns. By the next...
HMM locks in eight 13,400-TEU LNG dual-fuel boxships at HD Hyundai for ~$1.46B
HMM has ordered eight 13,400-TEU LNG dual-fuel containerships from HD Hyundai yards in Korea, a deal valued around $1.46 billion. Public details indicate the ships are LNG dual-fuel, split across HD Hyundai yards, with...
U.S. Port Outlook Darkens for 2026 on Tariffs and Policy Risks
Moody’s says the U.S. ports sector is heading into a tougher 2026 as tariff uncertainty and softer macro growth weigh on import demand and planning. A one-year U.S.–China fee pause offers only temporary relief;...
The 2026 Green Premium: Who Pays and Who Gets Paid For Cleaner Ships – And Why
By 2026 the green premium in shipping has turned into a real cost line that someone has to absorb. On one side, large cargo and passenger ships trading with Europe are pulled into the...
Registry Shake-Up as Owners Migrate from Hong Kong to Singapore
A growing number of owners are shifting away from Hong Kong registration and toward Singapore, citing policy and cost uncertainty tied to recent U.S.–China trade frictions and port-fee risks. Singapore’s registry has logged a...
Shadow Fleet Squeeze as U.S. expands Iran oil sanctions
U.S. Treasury announced a new sanctions package targeting Sepehr Energy Jahan’s export network, with entities across the UAE, Panama, Liberia, India, Germany, and Greece, and identified six more tankers as blocked property. Officials say...
10 Port Call Bottlenecks That Quietly Destroy TCE (And How Operators Fix Them)
When a ship misses its ideal berth window because a document was not ready or a surveyor did not get clear instructions, nobody sees a dramatic headline in the log. It just appears later...
Deeply Discounted Russian LNG Floods China with more liftings, more paperwork
China is snapping up sanctioned Russian LNG at heavy discounts, ending months of commercial limbo for Arctic LNG 2 and re-wiring trade and compliance patterns. Since August, Novatek has moved 14 cargoes to China...
Talara Released in Hormuz as IRGC Lets Crew Go, Cargo Reported Offloaded
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seized the Marshall Islands–flagged products tanker Talara on November 14 in the Strait of Hormuz, then released the vessel and all 21 crew five days later. The manager said the ship...
Gulf Momentum: BOEM Moves a Second Lease Sale Toward the Calendar
The U.S. Interior’s offshore regulator has advanced a second Gulf of Mexico lease sale, signaling more acreage and multi-year project visibility for operators. For maritime stakeholders, this extends the upstream cycle: drillship demand, subsea...