Scuttlebutt
-
Europe
Reflections on Posidonia 2022
I’ll admit to a sensory overload and greater exhaustion than normal after attending my first shipping events in more than…
Read More » -
Finance and Insurance
Smaller shipowners ought to be concerned by today’s P&I merger mania
With a little over two weeks now until the North and Standard Club votes are counted, the number one item…
Read More » -
Operations
2021 review: The Year of the Green Dot
It’s been the year of the green dot for me covering shipping in 2021. Scanning MarineTraffic (other vessel tracking service…
Read More » -
Environment
Will emissions pledge sound the death knell for LNG as a fuel?
If you’re a top 10 carrier you will rely on the likes of Amazon, Ikea and Unilever for a very…
Read More » -
Environment
Shell ruling should send shudders throughout shipping
What a hammering the oil majors took yesterday, reminiscent of Big Tobacco’s choking comeuppance in an American court 15 years…
Read More » -
Operations
Blue sky thinking about game changing moonshots
I recently put out an all-points bulletin to PR firms to stop using the term ‘game changing’. Last week I…
Read More » -
Operations
Shipping and the pandemic, one year on
Shipping’s resilience has been tested and showcased like never before in the year since coronavirus was declared a pandemic. It…
Read More » -
Contributions
Peak awards? Time to break out the champagne
Consolidation in shipping tends to get a mixed reaction. The smaller guys say they’re just as competitive – and often…
Read More » -
Operations
Splash Annual Review: Running fast towards new horizons
In hindsight, peak pandemic ennui hit our household here in southern France on Sunday, April 26. Shorn of regular pastimes…
Read More » -
Contributions
Two commendable aspects arising from the ONE Apus box collapse
It’s clearly the most talked about, eagerly viewed shipping story of the month, but there are two commendable things I’d…
Read More » -
Operations
Shipowning: A sunny place for shady people
“A sunny place for shady people”. That was how the English novelist Somerset Maugham brilliantly summed up the principality of…
Read More » -
Shipyards
Qatar’s record-breaking ship order: the big picture
The global shipbuilding paradigm has changed dramatically in the space of just 24 hours. Bluechip owners wanting their VLCCs or…
Read More » -
Operations
Remote surveys are here to stay
I came across a Reuters article this week that was very negative about the rise in the use of remote…
Read More » -
Bunkering
Goodbye to all that crap
“We burn crap on our ships. The end of the refining cycle, the residue; one step up from the asphalt…
Read More » -
Bunkering
Why it often pays to be second
We’ve had some interesting debate from shipowners of late on the benefits – or lack thereof – from being a…
Read More » -
Operations
Go slow movement driving shipping away from decarbonisation breakthroughs
Two wrongs don’t make a right. That was one of my Dad’s most annoying maxims that he’d deploy to drown…
Read More » -
Environment
Shipping’s Y2K bug?
Do you remember the fear mongering as the clocks ticked down to the dawn of the new millennium? The Y2K…
Read More » -
Shipyards
Has shipping’s Airbus moment finally landed?
Toulouse is my local airport and every time I fly out I get to see a phalanx of shiny new…
Read More » -
Environment
China, the sulphur cap and the valemax playbook
This week China outlined its own sulphur cap plans which are set to kick in earlier than the global regulations…
Read More » -
Contributions
How shipping has changed since Lehman Brothers collapsed
Around this time 10 years ago I boarded a train from the far southwest of France bound for Hamburg. The…
Read More »