The dark fleet poses a threat to shipping safety, but it may take a big, messy and very public European disaster to get that threat onto the political radar

The fact that a majority of governments now back a carbon levy for shipping is not enough. To create a global policy architecture to decarbonise the maritime sector will require a strong story to sell domestically and internationally

More than 100 containerships were stuck off east and Gulf coast ports in autumn 2022 amid the supply chain crisis. These ship queues will return if the ILA goes on strike next week — and the blame game will begin

Keeping trade flowing is a moral endeavour, and shipping’s insurers deserve credit

Moral culpability for this casualty rests with the damn fools crazy enough deliberately to set a suezmax on fire. But television audiences might not have seen things like that

The Houthis like to paint themselves as the legitimate government of Yemen. Legitimate governments do not typically run the risk devastating oil spills

If anything has to take a hit, let it be a company’s bottom line rather than its seafarers

As Maersk U-turns on LNG and methanol projects fold, the industry is asking what has changed. This is about the inherent uncertainty and nervousness in an industry that still does not have any confidence in what happens next and is defaulting to lowest cost and optionality as a default

Lloyd’s-backed insurers have failed to answer questions over whether they provided cover for a 25-year-old, hit-and-run tanker, a dark fleet poster child intercepted by Malaysian authorities as it fled the scene of a collision and is now detained

Holy grails are wonderful things. But as anyone who has read The Da Vinci Code knows, they can be that little bit hard to find

With the right policies, the EU can stay in the game

It was never the intention of economic sanctions to undermine shipping safety, but that has been the result. Politicians are keen to halt the trail of dirty money leaking from dark fleet tankers. But where is their plan to stop clapped out ships leaking noxious cargoes onto European coastlines?

Liberté and fraternité necessarily entail égalité with other EU jurisdictions

Shipowners, particularly those in the commodity shipping sectors, are being tempted by relatively low prices and the fear of missing out to order new ships. Many of the shipyards benefiting from this spending spree are recipients of some form of state aid

The debate on measures already agreed is not going to be reopened, whatever certain shipowners were telling themselves at Posidonia this week

It is long past time for salvors and underwriters to grasp the truth that they serve the same client, not to mention serving the same overriding cause: protecting life, property and the environment

Industry stocks have been hitting it out of the park for a couple of years. They may just go higher still

The Houthis have no business launching missiles at ships at all, let alone singling out Mediterranean Shipping Co because one of its shareholders is an Israeli national

The onus to sort this mess out rests with the politicians, not marine insurers. Given the inordinate amount of time the US Congress took just to agree Kyiv’s request for more shells, hopes can sadly not be high

After putting together the world’s biggest shipping empire in little over five decades, it’s safe to say this guy knows what he’s doing

Reduced capacity could soon be the new normal for at least three years in every decade

Marine insurance is proving its value after the past week’s spectacular casualty in Baltimore

Most seafarers won’t even know the beneficial ownership of the vessels on which they serve. But they have every reason to be afraid if the Houthis get it wrong

It’s 2024 and we still still have vessels ‘owned’ by anonymous brass plate companies, ‘flagged’ with fictitious ‘registries’, ‘IMO numbered’ with digits based on mum’s birthday, ‘classed’ by little-known ROs and ‘insured’ by shaky fixed premium providers. This isn’t progress

Wording of Conwartime and Voywar clauses are matters BIMCO could usefully revisit before the next crisis

Substantive regulatory measures should be the last resort. But last resorts are sometimes unavoidable

The murder of Alexei Navalny and the second anniversary of the Ukraine invasion have seen measures targeting the Kremlin proliferate. The West should pay more attention to ensuring the ones we have already actually hit home

Shipowners sometimes argue that they are merely humble ‘taxi drivers of the sea’. But few professions are as extensively regulated as driving taxis

Why bother with creative destruction when good old-fashioned destruction will do instead?

Much more of this and Narnia, Utopia, Middle Earth, Freedonia, La-La Land and Big Rock Candy Mountain will be offering their capitals as home ports

Flag states have a legal and moral duty to enforce the hard won safety standards that underpin global maritime trade, but the rise of the dark fleet supported by a growing list of opaque, outsourced flag administrations is undermining the rules-based order of global shipping

The impact on the Suez Canal will not be permanent. But it is now effectively closed to those who are risk adverse, and/or allied to Western countries seen as supporting Israel