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

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?

Time to make seafarer abandonment a thing of the past
Seafarers are entitled to as much protection as teenagers on a rite de passage Interrail jaunt or parents relaxing by a swimming pool

Poseidon Principles must show that virtue signalling can have teeth
As the recent annual disclosure report establishes, shipping is currently struggling to meet existing lacklustre IMO ambitions on greenhouse gas reduction. Heaven help the industry when it is forced to take on the transition to net zero

Your tankers are being held in a queue in the Bosporus. They must be answered shortly
The impasse in the Bosporus has reached crisis point. Don’t make P&I clubs the fall guys

Don’t look for CII workarounds — just make it work
If matters degenerate into a crazy free-for-all where each shipowner does the best for themselves individually, the industry seems collectively bound to reach the worst possible outcome, as if trapped in some real-world version of game theory’s famous prisoners’ dilemma

Waiting for IMO: Don’t let nothing happen twice
When it comes to climate change, shipping cannot be reduced to the roles of the hapless tramp protagonists of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece. Rather than hanging around in the hope that Godot will turn up, we need to go out and find him

Don’t treat ships like chess pieces
Capturing a tanker is not the maritime equivalent of white triumphantly winning a rook for a bishop

All countries must back efforts to free Heroic Idun and its crew
Keeping an innocent crew prisoner is just as much piracy when perpetrated by states instead of pirate gangs, and therefore cannot be an element in any legitimate fight against piracy

What does a good COP27 look like for shipping?
Headline commitments to decarbonise shipping are finally being worked into the wider energy transition. The results of this year’s COP may be lower in profile as a result, but more substantive progress can come from aligning government energy transition plans with industry readiness

The good times are still rolling. But for how long?
Shipping has so far done well from the literally killer combination of the most devastating pandemic to hit the world in a century and the most serious war in Europe since 1945. But if something can’t go on forever, it won’t

What can shipping expect from China?
China’s zero-Covid policy has created an expensive new normal for shipping and President Xi Jinping’s steadfast stance at the policy-defining Communist Party congress suggests there is no respite on the horizon

Smart sanctions must heed the law of unintended consequences
If the G7 wants to introduce a cap on the price paid for Russian crude, it should make haste slowly. Let it talk to all concerned about potential for things to go wrong, including tanker operators

Shipping has its part to play in putting pressure on Putin
Sanctions are always a blunt instrument. But even blunt instruments are better than doing a job with no tools at all

Politics, macroeconomics and war unsettle outlook for marine insurance
Seeing the sector back in the black is positive for insurers — and ultimately for their shipowner clients too — but watch out for what could go wrong

Why it’s time to stop talking about shipping decarbonisation
The shipping industry is not on a trajectory to hit net zero by 2050. The only way it will find the pace and scale required to correct this dangerous path is to stop looking at this as a shipping problem

The View: Talk before you walk
Workforces in the maritime transport sector are becoming increasingly militant. It is incumbent on shipping to engage and negotiate agreements

Box shipping’s party draws towards an end
After a two-year frenzy, the container shipping market is showing signs of normalisation. The question now is, how it will avoid mistakes of the past during a period of slowdown?

The strange death of Somali piracy
Say thank you to the naval personnel who put paid to what was once a major scourge of the industry. And most of all, say thank you to the seafarers at the sharp end

Time to speed up grain exports from Ukraine
The best solution, of course, would be an end to the war. Failing that, everything possible must be done to make the blue corridor work

Strikes are the last thing British ports need now
From the dockers’ tanner strike of 1889 to the Pentonville Five dispute of 1972, stoppages on the waterfront have literally changed the course of British history. Let them stay in the history books

Taiwan Strait: pray we’ll always be as lucky
The container segment has been in a mess for the past two years, and an additional one-week hiccup in August may look like no big deal. But there are broader issues at stake

Don’t be (quite so) cynical about ESG
Do it because you clients want it and because your bankers demand it. And most of all, because it’s the right thing to do

Getting Ukrainian grain to the hungry really is a matter of life and death
Agreement to resume shipments is good news from a commercial standpoint, and even better news for the tens of millions who are one subsidised loaf away from an empty stomach

Colombo and Hambantota: A tale of two ports
Many will remember the third world debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. We hope that what faces Sri Lanka next will be easier on its population than what came next in Argentina

Shipping’s long ‘Do Svidaniya’ is proving harder than expected
In a multipolar world, the rest don’t have to follow the demands of the west. Shipping is a case in point

Now is not the time for shipping to be hiding behind closed doors
There are difficult conversations to be had in shipping, but having them behind closed doors in order to avoid scrutiny is a retrograde step. It is also at odds with the demands of wider society and their customers

China’s Covid crunch should spur supply chain resilience review
Russia’s isolation has redrawn maritime trade lanes, but China’s coronavirus-fuelled supply chain crunch offers a glimpse of what any potential decoupling may bring in the future. If there is a single lesson of the past few years it is that reliance on a single source of supplies is never a good idea

Euronav battle is clash of visions for the future of tankers
Tanker recovery or decarbonisation play? You pays your money and you takes your choice

And then there were 12. Owners should worry about P&I consolidation
Whether a slimmed-down IG would meet the textbook definition of oligopoly is a matter of taste, but six entities with 90% of a market between them is never a good look

Sovcomflot is counting on a rapid return to normal. Greek tanker owners should do so too
While Greece, Cyprus and Malta seek to have EU sanctions on the lifting of Russian crude watered down, European solidarity with Ukraine is more important than making money from shipping
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.