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What to watch

Just as the Exxon Valdez and Piper Alpha disasters brought lasting change to the tanker and offshore industries in terms of best practice and safety standards, so the chaos created by a 20,000 teu Evergreen ship becoming wedged in the Suez Canal is likely to put pressure on containership owners and operators to address their preparedness to deal with major incidents involving the latest generation of boxships.

Now Ever Given has been refloated, attention will turn to investigating what went wrong and the varying degrees of responsibility held for the casualty that led to the six-day blockage of the Suez Canal.

Marine insurers are bracing for claims running to hundreds of millions of dollars in the wake of the grounding of Ever Given in the Suez Canal, according to senior figures in the sector.

Analysis

Tanker rates are starting to inch up in response to the Suez Canal blockage, the impact of which will likely take weeks to fully clear.

As one of his first actions on taking office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order underlining his administration’s staunch support for the Jones Act, including it as part of a broader effort to support the revitalisation of the country’s manufacturing base.

Opinion

The industry’s path to energy efficiency will challenge many long-held industry beliefs, Ardmore’s Mark Cameron tells Lloyd's List. Performance is now key, but just how accurate are the metrics?

From the News Desk: Suez and the future of shipping.

Lloyd’s List Podcast: Shipping’s super-sized safety secret.

Markets

Bulk carriers have started rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope as 87 vessels are stalled waiting to transit through the Suez Canal, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data.

Following the refloating of the Evergreen vessel that has been blocking the Suez Canal for the best part of a week, attention is now turning to the surge of imports that are due to arrive at Europe’s shores as soon as vessels begin to transit the canal.

Reinsurers face an unspecified “large loss event” potentially reaching hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the blockage of the Suez Canal by grounded boxship Ever Given, says Fitch Ratings.

In other news

Security consultants say it is unlikely the blockage of the Suez Canal has increased the security risk to shipping.

Mitsui OSK Lines, the Japanese shipping group, is tapping Kyushu Electric Power Co for the supply of liquefied natural gas as marine fuel for Japan’s first pair of LNG-fuelled ferries.

Total SE has been forced to postpone work on a $20bn liquefied natural gas project after the seizure by jihadists of the port of Palma in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province.

Singapore’s leading yard group Sembcorp Marine will build an offshore converter platform to be deployed in the middle of the North Sea for one of the largest wind farms being constructed in the world.