Decks and Deals Weekly #48
The period of 29 June–4 July 2026 opened with Iran replacing drones with invoices, closed with France and the UK deploying warships, and delivered a $1.47 billion VLCC orderbook bet in between.
Geopolitics is no longer a risk. It is the environment
Shipping has changed the way it thinks about risk. The 2025–2026 ICS Maritime Barometer documents not a new threat at the top of the rankings, but a new logic altogether
Decks and Deals Weekly #47
The week of 21–28 June 2026 delivered a drone strike on a trapped Evergreen vessel, a 39% VLCC rate collapse, container shipping’s third-largest spike in history, and a ceasefire that kept shooting
The feeder container paradox: why overcapacity has not broken the market
Hundreds of new feeders under construction. Spot rates under pressure. Charter rates holding firm. Orderbooks at record highs. Something does not add up — and the answer has very little to do with shipping economics
Decks and Deals Weekly #46
The Strait of Hormuz reopened and then closed again this week as the United States and Iran signed a peace deal, while global shipping markets repriced freight, bunkers and sentiment, 14–20 June 2026
The Iran deal will not move tankers. It will move war risk premiums
A diplomatic text will not move a single tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. But it can move the war risk premiums that decide whether any tanker can afford to try
Posidonia 2026: the visible power and the invisible power
At Posidonia 2026 in Athens, 1–5 June 2026, China sent 200 companies, opened a shipbuilding office and signed contracts. America sent a classification society. The asymmetry was not subtle
Posidonia 2026: six questions following shipping executives through Athens
Athens, June 1–5, 2026. Forty thousand shipping professionals converge on Posidonia 2026, the largest edition in the event’s history. The panels are packed. The orderbooks are fuller. And the mood, curiously, is something short of euphoric
Posidonia 2026: shipping’s new currency is not freight. It is resilience
The industry has a new consensus word. What nobody is saying out loud is what it costs — and who pays when freight rates can no longer carry the weight
Decks and Deals Weekly #45
Between 24 and 31 May 2026, global shipping markets ran on contradiction: a peace deal nobody signed, a VLCC war premium in freefall, a BDI rebound nobody expected, and asset prices that simply refused to care