
The View
Lloyd's List's weekly view on the big issues impacting and shaping shipping, providing timely insight and thought-provoking opinion

Can shipping be relied upon?
There is a growing realisation in shipping that nebulous net zero pledges are starting to require action and investment, and will be harder to achieve than first thought. The divide between those who can and can’t be relied upon is widening

What is green about methanol?
Maersk is to be applauded for its ambition. But for mass adoption of methanol fuel to make environmental sense, the molecule shipping uses must be truly green — and there is plenty to suggest it won’t be

A week is a long time in politics. Just not when it’s London International Shipping Week
Britain’s schools are crumbling. So is UK maritime policy

Nothing is perfect. Certainly not alternative fuels
For those seeking guidance on what to do next, the MEPC80 targets may have been too weak a signal

What now for the dark fleet?
The dark fleet may be coming out of the shadows, but the cloud it casts over the rest of the industry is not going anywhere

What if Panama Canal droughts are the new normal?
Until now, shipping has always found a workaround to restrictions on using this key waterway. But it won’t be able to do so indefinitely

Ukraine should not fight a just war with unjust tactics
The embattled country has the moral high ground in its fight with Russia. By declaring commercial shipping a valid military target, it abdicates a portion of it

Fires: Now a burning issue
EVs have gone way beyond ‘first kid on the block with a Tesla’ bragging rights and production volumes will increase exponentially. We need to be sure ships can carry them safely

Russia’s naval blockade of Ukraine: Illegal, immoral, inept
Blowing up neutral shipping is in nobody’s best interest. Not even Moscow’s

To err is human. But that’s no excuse for shutting down the Suez Canal
If the industry is to have confidence in the Suez Canal Authority’s pilotage service, extensive retraining and assessment of English proficiency may be required

Shipping’s climate compromise keeps 1.5°C alive, for now
The IMO’s loosely worded climate targets fall short of keeping shipping aligned with the 1.5°C Paris Agreement temperature goal, but they are closer than most expected and keep alive the prospect of global technical and economic measures to come that could yet radically reduce the industry’s carbon output

The IMO must show leadership on carbon emissions or face irrelevance
If China gets its way, fragmented regionalism will replace the United Nations specialist agency as the rule maker. That is not good for world trade and not good for shipping, either

If Greta Thunberg doesn’t shame you, Legal & General Investment Management will
Even if you’re as tired of environmental stuff as Tor Olav Trøim, you’ll soon find out that the more polluting you are, the more it is going to cost you to borrow

US west coast labour talks: There must be a better way
Carriers will welcome the six-year settlement between port employers and dock worker representatives announced this week. But it’s time to move on from ritualised confrontations twice in every decade

Decarbonisation is shipping’s D-Day
Former US presidential contender John Kerry used a speech at Nor-Shipping to compare the industry’s fuel transition to the Allied invasion of Normandy. When a decorated Vietnam veteran uses military metaphors, pay attention

It’s not yet time for Plan B on Russia shipping sanctions
Our industry is providing a second front without the shooting. Let the vice tighten slowly but surely

A Flag of Convenience is one thing. A Flag of Last Resort is another
Sanctions are only going to get more extensive. The past week shows that everybody in the industry — from Ulaanbaatar to the outskirts of Bristol — would benefit from greater situation awareness

The View: Combatting climate change needs passion, not statistics
The climate change activists were not parading around Dubai’s convention centre calling shipping to account: There was no point. Shipping has lost the radical edge that challenges, confronts and contests

Shipping is a target again just for doing its job
When 53 seafarers can be taken hostage in the space of a week and it barely causes a ripple in the international news, it is time for the shipping industry to address why it all too often seen as an ‘easy’ target

Banks learnt sanctions diligence the hard way. Shipowners don’t have to
Sanctions efforts have so far been unrolled more by way of moral suasion and threatened consequences rather than active enforcement. But that is likely to change shortly

The Wimbledon effect should see London still dominate maritime legal market
As long as shipping disputes are by default resolved under English law in English courts, domestic firms have an obvious head start

Dark fleet: Out of mind, but not out of sight
Hundreds of substandard, unclassed, uninsured vessels are routinely hauling Russian oil internationally while avoiding any serious oversight, so why are governments looking the other way and pretending the dark fleet is invisible?

It is still possible for the IMO to translate climate aspiration into action
Shipping’s climate negotiations are a high stakes game of poker, where governments will be looking to make deals in exchange for compromises. It makes little strategic sense to show your hand this early in the game, but real progress can be achieved in the next three months

Compliance with the law is not optional. Even for P&O Ferries
UK minimum wage will be extended to seafarers, while Labour is committing to a ‘Seafarers’ Charter’. Neither would have happened without the P&O Ferries’ shocking actions

The health of the oceans is shipping’s problem too
An industry that routinely allowed garbage to be dumped overboard until just 10 years ago needs to get with the programme

Container shipping faces change while the song remains the same
The pandemic was neatly bookended by TPM conferences in 2020 and 2023. The new set of challenges faced by container shipping, however, have a familiar ring

Do the legal trade with Russia. But stay the right side of the line
It is pointless admonishing owners to act like conscience-stricken peaceniks. Where there is a legal buck to be made, somebody will make it. But the mark is overstepped by breaking sanctions, or facilitating others to do so

Shipping and Ukraine: Repercussions of a crisis
Next week sees the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. There should be no second anniversary

Citibank has 30,000 compliance professionals. How many has your shipping company got?
The Russian price cap could easily see some shipowners who try to stay just within the rules find themselves just outside them

EU sanctions have yet to sever Russia’s sinews of war
It will be some time yet before we can know the consequences for certain. Whatever they are, there is little alternative to living with them

An urgent appeal to the shipping community: Help the UN avert catastrophe in Yemen
War-torn Yemen could soon face environmental degradation of a degree as large as any witnessed in recent decades. Shipping will not be to blame. But collective intervention from shipping is the last best hope of preventing it

Cargill deserves first-mover advantage from methanol-fuelled bulker gambit
The transition to net zero needs the emergence of a Field of Dreams’ factor. If you build methanol-bunkering terminals, will they come?
You must sign in to use this functionality
Authentication.SignIn.HeadSignInHeader
Email Article
All set! This article has been sent to my@email.address.
All fields are required. For multiple recipients, separate email addresses with a semicolon.
Please Note: Only individuals with an active subscription will be able to access the full article. All other readers will be directed to the abstract and would need to subscribe.