SECURITY company Ambrey has counted more than 300 attacks on shipping in the Red Sea over the past year, turning the industry on its head and rerouting the vast majority of traffic around the Cape of Good Hope, reporter Joshua Minchin wrote.

Some shipowners have continued to run the gauntlet through the Bab el Mandeb, however. Unfortunately, several seafarers have paid for this decisions of their owners with their lives.

While the majority of reported incident were of near misses, some vessels were struck. Most notably, Barbados-flagged True Confidence (IMO: 9460784), which was hit by three rockets, killing three crew.

Container spot rates to US west coast keep falling despite cargo front-loading hype

Asia-US west coast spot rates have been falling this month. Of the main east-west tradelines, the Asia-US west coast market is the weakest. This is the opposite of what the headlines on front-loaded cargo suggest, senior maritime reporter Greg Miller wrote.

Why the disparity between the narrative and the data?

One theory is that cargo frontloading has not yet begun in earnest and this is the normal seasonal slack period. Imports to Los Angeles and Long Beach were near record highs in October, but imports are a lagging indicator. Weaker spot rates could point to a normal seasonal dip imports to Los Angeles and Long Beach in December.

Another theory is that vessel capacity gains are outpacing demand. Linerlytica said earlier this week: “Although cargo demand remains strong, with the most recent volume index to the west coast remaining 15% higher than last year, the problem lies with carriers’ inability to manage the capacity influx, which average west coast capacity growing by 17% year over year.”

Ukraine’s maritime trade forced offline by Russian aggression

Ukraine’s seaborne trade has “gone dark” in response to a spate of Russian attacks on the country’s greater Odesa ports that saw at least four civilian ships damaged last month, reported maritime risk analyst Bridget Diakun.

New guidance for ships sailing to Chornomorsk, Odesa and Yuzhnyy (Pivdennyi) was issued on October 15 with masters being instructed to turn off their Automatic Identification System signals while sailing through the Black Sea corridor and while berthed.

LA/LB cargo volumes near record levels ahead of upcoming tariff ‘headache’

Combined cargo volumes at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach neared record levels in October, owing to a strong US economy, and a pull-forward of cargo because of expected tariffs and labour uncertainty at the US east and Gulf coast ports, wrote senior maritime reporter Tomer Raanan.

The two ports handled 1.89m teu between them, slightly below the all-time record of 1.92m teu reached during the pandemic-era supply chain crisis in May 2021.

BDI down 10% despite November rally

The Baltic Dry Index is still 10% down on the same period last year, despite a significant rally since the beginning of November, wrote Joshua Minchin.

BIMCO shipping analyst Filipe Gouveia said the BDI “has recovered since the start of November due to stronger capesize freight rates, but the index is still down 10% year on year”.

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