The 20 most-read stories in Lloyd’s List 2024
Our exclusive story that the cable-cutting, Russia-linked dark fleet tanker Eagle S had been effectively used as a ‘spy ship’ for Russia was among the last stories of the year but the most popular in 2024, amassing more than 190,000 views
Houthi attacks on ships, sanctions crackdowns, multi-billion dollar bridge disasters and the clickbait that is Donald Trump all featured in the top 20 most-read stories in Lloyd’s List this year
GEOPOLITICS and shipping didn’t so much as intersect in 2024 but experience a head-on crash of momentous proportions to dominate the news at Lloyd’s List.
The dark fleet* of elderly and poorly maintained sanctions-circumventing tankers plying Russian oil trades and the Houthis menacing merchant shipping in the Red Sea were the most obvious maritime sector manifestations of global conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East.
US President-elect Donald Trump also absorbed the Lloyd’s List headlines, while the Baltimore bridge collapse and threatened US east coast port strike kept North America in our newsfeeds.
But it was the one of the last stories of the year, about a Russia-linked, cable-cutting dark fleet tanker that Lloyd’s List exclusively revealed had been equipped with spying equipment which topped the most-read list. Links to all the Top 20 stories are at the end of this article.
The second most-read story was published earlier, in April, when the Houthis carried out their first successful attack in the Indian Ocean on MSC Orion, using a drone that gave them reach some 300 to 400 nautical miles southeast of the Horn of Africa.
GPS jamming is not a new phenomenon, but its use was amplified in the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean as conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon intensified. Our story exclusively leveraged Lloyd’s List Intelligence data to show how war zone jamming was hacking vessels’ AIS signals to make them appear at airports was our fourth most-read story.
The closure of the Suez Canal to Europe-bound boxships from Asia as container lines in January began to divert around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid Houthi attacks also opened opportunities for a new breed of operator.
Lloyd’s List reported on January 24 that Singapore-incorporated, China-controlled Sea Legend Shipping began buying secondhand tonnage after receiving approval from China’s Ministry of Transport to operate a 10-ship international container line, primarily trading between the Red Sea and Türkiye.
The entrance of this company and other niche, previously unknown players such as China’s Shanghai Ledoco Supply Chain Management Co Ltd, (known as Torgmoll) with their prefixed “Newnew” ships has accelerated this year.
When Nigeria President Bola Tinubu personally announced in April that Maersk would invest $600m in his country’s ports, he forgot one thing: to check that the Danish shipping giant was actually on board.
News of the investment made world headlines, but Lloyd’s List dug deeper to reveal that while A.P. Moller-Maersk’s chairman Robert Maersk Uggla had discussed logistics investments, no deal had been done. That yielded our seventh-most read story: that Maersk’s $600m investment in Nigeria was news to them.
Remember the Baltimore bridge collapse? Three of the top 20 most-read stories featured this disaster that leaves insurance companies facing multi-billion dollar payouts and years of wrangling in US courts. Maersk-operated Dali (IMO: 9697428) destroyed the bridge in March when we later learnt from the National Transportation Safety Board it experienced a series of power blackouts.
2024 was the year that Western regulators realised they had to get tough on the dark fleet of tankers evading their sanctions. The EU and UK changed their laws so that like the US they could directly sanction a vessel, and this proved to be a gamechanger.
As the year closes the Office of Foreign Asset Control has designated 270 ships, the EU 94, while the UK reached 110. News of the UK and EU’s largest sanctions crackdown both made the top 20 list.
During the year Lloyd’s List collaborated with Bellingcat on joint investigations of stolen grain shipped from Ukraine, yielding exclusive insight into a shipment from a sanctioned port in occupied Crimea to Houthi-controlled Yemen port. The story published in December, was our eighth-most read.
The pending US east coast port strike in October twice made the top 20 headlines at Lloyd’s List even though the strike was called off only days after it began.
With the presidential election looming, talks were kicked into the long grass until January, but not before the International Longshoremen’s Association borrowed from the Trump playbook by spreading unsubstantiated, inflammatory news, in this case about grossly inflated freight rates to enter our top 20.
As 2024 came to an end the newly elected Donald Trump — and/or those who advise him — decided to show an interest in the global maritime sector.
In one of his first forays into freight and logistics Trump decided to attack Panama and the Panama Canal, claiming it was controlled by China and he wanted to take back control. That became one of our most popular stories, along with an earlier and more sober overview of what Trump 2.0 could mean for global shipping in 2025.
The return of Somali piracy also hit our top headlines for the first time in more than a decade, while the last entry in our top 20 also reflected interest in green shipping and decarbonisation.
Nevertheless, our exclusive story about the impact of carbon levy on global shipping fuels sparked an inquest among International Maritime Organization members to determine who had leaked the document to Lloyd’s List, which was gladly read by subscribers to make it our 20th-most read story.
- Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland ‘was loaded with spying equipment’
- Houthis deploy new weapons to secure first direct hit in Indian Ocean
- Houthis resume shipping attacks amid concerns over Russian missile support
- War zone GPS jamming sees more ships show up at airports
- Bosporus Strait closed as bulk carrier runs aground
- Mysterious new Chinese carrier emerges to capitalise on risky Red Sea trades
- Maersk’s reported $600m investment in Nigeria is news to Maersk
- Ukraine ‘outraged’ at Yemen grain shipment from occupied Crimea
- Six still missing after Baltimore bridge collapse
- EU crackdown on Russia sees 27 ships designated for breaching sanctions
- ILA goes on strike and spreads fake news on $30K shipping rates
- Finland police seize Russian-linked dark fleet tanker Eagle S in cable-cutting investigation
- Marine insurers face billion-dollar payout on Baltimore bridge collapse
- The numbers don’t lie: October US port strike would be ‘cataclysmic’
- Trump to Panama: Reduce ‘ridiculous’ tolls or US will take back canal
- UK sanctions 30 ships and two Russian insurers in biggest dark fleet crackdown yet
- What could a second Trump presidency mean for shipping — and shipping stocks?
- UPDATED: Maersk-operated containership hits Baltimore bridge, causing collapse
- Somali piracy is back and a show of force from India may not be enough to stop it
- Exclusive: IMO carbon levy at $150-$300 would result in least GDP impact on global economy
* Lloyd’s List defines a tanker as part of the dark fleet if it is aged 15 years or over, anonymously owned and/or has a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery, solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades, and engaged in one or more of the deceptive shipping practices outlined in US State Department guidance issued in May 2020. The figures exclude tankers tracked to government-controlled shipping entities such as Russia’s Sovcomflot, or Iran’s National Iranian Tanker Co, and those already sanctioned.
Download our explainer on the different risk profiles of the dark fleet here
