The Magnetic North
The United States has granted Royal Dutch Shell conditional approval of its plan to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea, off the North Slope of Alaska, next summer. Continue reading
Somalian militants and pirates – can one cure fix all?
There is growing evidence that the American campaign against Somali “militants” – the current term applied by the great and the good to all sorts of thugs – is having an impact on anti-piracy countermeasures. Continue reading
The Pavit – a 21st Century Marie Celeste?
Maritime history buffs may remember the story of the Marie Celeste, a sailing ship found abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean, which seemingly had managed to sail for months without reaching land, and whose crew were mysteriously absent. To this day, her mystery remains the subject of speculation. Continue reading
A down to earth lunch with looming doom Larry!
I have a friend (let’s call him Larry, though that’s not his real name) who is a well-known lawyer specialising in ship finance in the States. Of a pronounced gloomy worldview, as befits his Polish heritage, he was one of the few skeptics I know who warned of a gathering economic storm, back before the Lehman Brothers collapse. Continue reading
Worse to come for shipping
The true state of the world economy was shown on August 1, with the release by JPMorgan of a series of indicators making up the global manufacturing purchasing managers’ indices (PMI). Continue reading
Why shipping stays offshore
A small article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal brings back memories. In the article, John Coustas, CEO of container operator Danaos Corporation, reflects on the things that went wrong. Continue reading
Piracy:Will we ever find a solution?
We have inveighed against the tendency in our industry, to keep repeating: “Something must be done about piracy”, without getting specific about what that “something” is. Continue reading
What do oil spills, piracy and the Greek crisis have in common?
There are at least three “received truths”, as one of my college professors sarcastically called them, that, in the world of shipping, may be open to challenge. One is that last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion had nothing to do with the rest of the shipping industry, being only about wells and rigs — and not ships Continue reading
Stronger steps needed to clamp down on rogue ROs
Here is some good news, even if it isn’t very new: we now have the first MARPOL conviction in an American court of a “recognised organisation (RO) inspector” (I use the term loosely) for issuing fraudulent certificates. Continue reading
Uncertain guidelines in a shadowy world
The recent release of four employees of Protection Vessels International, after nearly six months’ detention in Eritrea, together with the imprisonment of six persons — American, Kenyan and British citizens — in Somalia, convicted of illegally bringing ransom money into the country, shows the risks that are run by those offering anti-piracy services. Continue reading
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