THE shipping industry is desperately seeking clarity, it’s just not entirely clear what it might do if it happens to find it.

On Monday, in the main hearing room at the International Trade Commission in Washington, the industry will be listening eagerly to the public hearing on the US Trade Representative port fee proposal. What is, or is not decided off the back of that is likely to be pretty seismic in terms of trade lanes, basic economic assumptions and where you might order your next ship.

Next month, in the plenary hall of the International Maritime Organization, the industry will sit gripped to the season finale of the ‘will they, won’t they’ carbon levy drama. What is, or is not decided there effectively sets the regulatory agenda for the next few decades and when you might order your next ship.

Answer those questions and we all move onwards and upwards, right?

Well, unless that IMO decisions comes with an unexpectedly bold price on carbon, it does not necessarily unlock things overnight.

It may allow people to start thinking about all of those ships that were delivered during the last newbuilding boom that are now heading towards 20 years of age. And it might allow them to stop using a crystal ball for their financial calculations and start plugging in a tangible IMO trajectory to their newbuilding plans.

But the shipyards are essentially full for the next three years, so don’t expect shipowners to suddenly reach for their chequebooks, at least not until the prices come down.

The shipping industry is in wait-and-see mode for the moment.

What is president Trump going to do next?  What can Europe realistically do in response? Are we going to have peace in the Middle East and is the Red Sea opening anytime soon? Does Russia somehow come in from the cold?

In that context some semblance of clarity from the IMO is not the only deciding factor that shipowners are considering right now.

If prices start to come down, and if you have clarity on IMO, and if we see a route towards Red Sea security, and if we know which ships are going to be arbitrarily slapped with a China tax, then, just maybe, we might see some momentum in orders and scrapping. We may even see some final investment decisions on future fuel supplies.

But there are a lot of big ifs there.

For the moment, it seems a safer bet to assume that most big capex investment decisions are on hold until we know a little more detail about what happens next.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

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