02 NOV 2023  In the 19th Century, the British East India Company was buying up huge amounts of Chinese goods – tea, silk, porcelain and more – but China was not interested in buying anything from Britain. As a way of balancing the accounts, Britain began smuggling opium from India into …

01 NOV 2023 It’s hard to overstate how crucial Greenland, and its kilometres-thick ice layer, is to climate change. If all that ice melted, the sea would rise by about seven metres – the height of a house. But what happens if we fail to limit warming to 1.5 °C (as …

31 OCT 2023 U.S. penalties on shippers transporting Russian oil in breach of the G7’s price cap could push more Russian cargoes onto vessels referred to as the ghost fleet and away from mainstream tankers, shipping sources and analysts told Reuters. The cap bans Western companies from providing maritime services for Russian seaborne oil exports sold above …

30 OCT 2023 Ukraine is imposing tighter controls over grain traders to boost revenues to fund its wartime defenses, a move that may further complicate shipments from the country’s Danube and Black Sea ports. The Cabinet of Ministers will require exporters of grains and oilseeds either to get licenses or …

29 OCT 2023 In an era that may well become known for its unforeseen and unprecedented events – including the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the tanker shipping industry faces supply chain disruptions, market volatility and an array of evolving challenges. The fragility of the global economy, …

28 OCT 2023  The container shipping segment could be beginning a much longer and more challenging period according to a new analysis from Sea-Intelligence. The Danish analytics firm issued a forecast this week highlighting that the container segment’s current level of overcapacity could take a minimum of four years to …

27 OCT 2023  German authorities are leading a search and rescue mission in the North Sea after two cargo ships collided off the coast of Germany this morning. Two crewmembers from the UK-registered cargo ship Verity were rescued and the body of the third was recovered, while four others are still missing …

26 OCT 2023  Last week, Finnish investigators confirmed that they were looking at the movements of a Russian icebreaker and a Chinese boxship in connection with serious “mechanical damage” to a gas pipeline under the Baltic. On Tuesday, they announced that a broken anchor was found near the pipeline – and the …

25 OCT 2023 China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week, has now advanced more than US$330 billion, which is about 80% of the lending of the World Bank over that period. The BRI mainly lends to infrastructure projects, while the World Bank increasingly focuses …

24 OCT 2023 Berge Bulk, a leading dry bulk ship owner, has announced the launch of a newcastlemax bulk carrier retrofitted with four WindWings, a technology that uses wind power to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. The M/V Berg Olympus, fitted with four BARTech WindWings by Yara Marine Technologies, will navigate between …