Recently in Shipping Category

(John Roberts was a guest lecturer on energy security at the NATO Partnership for Peace Symposium at Oberammergau earlier this month.)

When NATO looks at Iran it would seem reasonable to expect that it was looking at how the western world's warships are cramming into the Strait of Hormuz amidst charge and counter-charge that the strait faces the prospect of an Iranian blockade.

But when NATO invites its partners in the region -- countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt are all members of NATO's Partnership for Peace program -- for an informal symposium on issues of mutual interest, it's not just energy security that's up for discussion, but cyber security, water and the problems posed by declining military budgets.

We all know that arresting of ships is a legitimate tool in the international maritime world to secure claims. And as the global tanker market continues to stay depressed, more and more ship owners are finding it hard to stay afloat these days.

The market has seen a spate of tanker companies -- from giants to minnows -- filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection or going bust. Many tankers are being arrested for a host of reasons, including defaulting on mortgage payments (arrested on behalf of the bank lenders) or for not paying bunker fuel suppliers (arrested on behalf of the fuel supplier.)

Such a situation has brought in a scenario where charterers are getting increasingly wary of chartering vessels for the fear of their cargoes getting stuck in the event of these ships getting arrested.

The expansion of the Panama Canal is going to have much wider effects on the US than just larger ships calling ports; it is going to shape the country's port infrastructure and ship movements.

In the latest edition of "what was once old is new again," the oil industry brings you: the choo-choo train.

Trains were a primary means of moving crude oil around the US and other countries years ago; John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil used trains to help solidify the power of his trust. (A paper written by two professors on the history of Standard Oil and rail put it this way: "The charge leveled most consistently against Standard Oil is that it secured unfair competitive advantages by negotiating advantageous rates with the railroads over which it shipped crude from the 'Oil Regions' of Pennsylvania and Ohio to its Cleveland refineries and sent kerosene and other refined petroleum products to markets on the East Coast.")

Rain or shine, it is business as usual for the Somalian pirates, as seen by the recent attempted hijacking of the fuel-oil laden Brillante Virtuso, a Liberia-flagged Suezmax vessel.

The attack, taking place at a time when the monsoon is at its peak in the Gulf of Aden and the surrounding region, saw a fire break out near the tanker's accommodation block as a result of RPGs fired at the vessel.

Worldwide tightening of bunker specifications was by far the most widely discussed topic at Platts 8th Annual Bunker and Residual Fuel Oil Conference in Houston this week. (Internally, we call this event BOTB...the bottom of the barrel.)

As background, the new International Maritime Organization regulations, effective July 1 of this year Emission Control Areas in Europe ships operating in those waters can burn no higher sulfur than 1%,down from 1.5%S. Those areas affected are the Baltic Sea, North Sea and the English Channel.

The North American ECA is slated to move sulfur fuel levels in most of North America to 1% sulfur from 3.5%-4.5% beginning August 2012, within 230 miles of a port. California has already implemented a 24-mile ECA zone of 1% sulfur.

In the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan, there's been a sort of polarization in the tanker market that has pitted some charterers against certain owners.

It's been more than a month since the devastating earthquake and tsunami had struck the northeastern coast of Japan, but still a few tanker owners are avoiding Japanese ports on fears of nuclear radiation from the Fukushima I nuclear plant.