The oil market is borrowing time from the future
More than 2 billion barrels of lost Middle Eastern production expose the fragility of energy security, shrinking safety margins and shipping’s increasingly strategic role in global oil supply
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RED SEA
Piraeus: higher profits, fewer containers
Piraeus Container Terminal grew revenue by 12.5% and net profit by approximately 36% in 2025, even as container throughput fell 5.95%, against a backdrop of geopolitical disruption and shifting trade routes
Geopolitics is raising the floor under container freight rates, and lowering the ceiling
A regional crisis is making ships costlier to run. The same crisis has handed carriers back the Suez shortcut. Container freight rates now sit between a rising cost floor and returning capacity
COSCO’s Piraeus decade: a success story entering a different geopolitical age
Ten years after COSCO took control of Piraeus, the port stands transformed — but shifting trade routes, tougher EU scrutiny and Mediterranean competition are rewriting the terms of its next decade
Red Sea risks rise as ship sale and purchase activity strengthens
Saudi Arabia successfully reduced its reliance on the Strait of Hormuz, but rising Red Sea security threats are creating new vulnerabilities for energy exports, global shipping, freight markets and international supply chains
The Strait of Hormuz reopens. Africa wants to keep the ships
Three weeks after Trump told the shipping world to start its engines, he declared the Iran deal over. African ports that absorbed the overflow have spent the windfall on infrastructure, not celebrations
Fleets change routes, insurers cut cover and war risk premiums surge
Shipping companies, insurers and energy traders are already changing operational behaviour as Middle East tensions disrupt routes, tighten insurance conditions and increase costs across the global maritime system, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea
The Suez Canal recovery that never arrived
The Suez Canal recovery should be in full swing. The Houthis stopped attacking ships in November. War risk premiums collapsed. Yet container traffic remains 60% below 2023 levels
Decks and Deals Weekly #38
The week of March 29 to April 4, 2026 brought a missile into Qatari sovereign waters, the first Western vessel through the Strait of Hormuz, and bunker prices that rewrote their record book
Decks and Deals Weekly #37
The week of March 22–28, 2026 reshaped global shipping as Hormuz turned into a toll-controlled chokepoint, tanker markets split sharply, and geopolitical shocks from Ukraine to Yemen redrew the map of risk