Maritime Briefing, 2 September 2026: Hormuz, Congestion, Korean Yards

Eighteen stories are moving ships, cargo and crews this morning. Three of them concern who controls a strait, three concern what a berth can absorb, and two describe shipbuilders buying their way into another country's navy.

HORMUZ AND THE ENERGY WAR

Five ships a day. Iran says a supertanker on the southern route struck two sea mines; US Central Command calls the claim disinformation while confirming that vessels are being hit by other means. Two tankers were struck inside 48 hours, the IRGC says 30 vessels have been turned back since 22 August, and weekend transits have fallen to roughly five ships a day against 14 on the Friday. The competing accounts are set out in the CENTCOM fact-check and the two tanker strikes.

A Baltic port burning again. A Ukrainian drone attack has caused a fire inside the port zone at Ust-Luga, with 44 drones claimed downed across the Leningrad region overnight and the Yanos refinery halting two of its three crude distillation units. The pattern going back to March is in the Ust-Luga strike.

Barrels held at home. Russia has extended its ban on exports of diesel, marine fuel and gas oils to 30 September, beneath a general fuel export ban that runs to January 2027. What that removes from the product and bunker markets is in the export ban extension.

CASUALTIES AND SAFETY

Two still missing in the Channel. The French trawler Maranello sank south-west of the Eddystone after reporting a problem with her fishing gear. Another trawler took three of the five crew off before she went down; the search for the remaining two was suspended after two days. The account is in the Maranello search.

Five hundred tonnes of water from a fender. A UK investigation into the ropax Stena Estrid's contact with a jetty at Holyhead found sharp protrusions on a turning fender, no rubber structure in place, and a crew that shored and ballasted the ship well enough to disembark 157 people normally. The findings are in the Holyhead report.

A station emptied for the first time since 1948. Australia is sending the icebreaker Nuyina 1,500 kilometres into the Southern Ocean to lift all 24 expeditioners off Macquarie Island ahead of an expected avian influenza outbreak among four million seabirds and 100,000 seals. See the Macquarie evacuation.

PORTS AND CONGESTION

Not a capacity problem. Average ship waiting times have nearly doubled since 2019 and time in port is up 31%, but terminal capacity across nine major ports grew 21% against 28% volume growth. A berth at 90% utilisation needs about a week to recover from one day of disruption, against two days at 75%. The argument, which cuts against Maersk's own explanation, is in the Drewry analysis.

Germany's gateways diverge. Bremen and Bremerhaven handled 2.6m teu in the first half, up 5.7%, and 34.5m tonnes of seaborne cargo, up 5.9%, while Hamburg fell 3.1%. The breakdown is in the first-half figures.

Ship size doubled at Chattogram. A $550m groundbreaking will let Bangladesh's main port take 6,000 teu vessels against a current limit near 2,800, adding more than 800,000 teu a year from 2030 under a 30-year concession. Details in the Laldia terminal.

LINER, FLEET AND FINANCE

First to fourth in six years. Maersk is forecast to fall behind both COSCO and CMA CGM by 2028, with fleet growth of 2% a year since 2018 against 11.7% among competitors and a global orderbook now at a record 14.84m teu. The forecast and the counter-argument are in the liner rankings piece.

Athens reopens for shipowners. Star Bulk is preparing a Euronext Athens listing alongside Nasdaq, with around €100m of shares targeted for 9 to 11 September, on the back of a $144.9m quarter. The transaction is covered in the Star Bulk listing.

A wind-down bought by its own chief executive. Taylor Maritime has agreed $48.6m of sales taking its owned fleet from five ships to two, with Ed Buttery's T3 Holding on the buyer side for roughly $32.2m. The related-party structure is in the handysize sale.

BUILDING, EQUIPMENT AND ENFORCEMENT

Two Korean yards, one American navy. A 13 August memorandum eases the bar on building US Navy vessels overseas for yards that buy into a US shipyard. Hanwha already owns Philly Shipyard and has bid up to $1.2bn for Austal's US arm; HD Hyundai has been examining yards in San Diego and on the Texas Gulf Coast. See the race for US naval yards.

A design certified before the bid. Hanwha Ocean has taken DNV and ABS approvals for a standardised low-carbon FPSO framework as it competes with SBM Offshore for a $3bn contract on TotalEnergies' Venus field offshore Namibia, where a final investment decision is due this half. Covered in the FPSO certification.

Jamming becomes a procurement line. Höegh Autoliners is fitting satellite interference backup across all 38 of its ships and future deliveries on a five-year contract, with installation starting this month. The scope is in the fleetwide rollout.

One hundred and sixty ships at once. Royal Wagenborg is standardising connectivity, onboard IT and cybersecurity across its general cargo fleet, combining Starlink, OneWeb, VSAT, Iridium Certus and 5G with firewalling and endpoint management. Details in the Wagenborg programme.

A book that did not match the sea. Two ship managers have been fined a combined $1.75m and placed on four years of probation after admitting they concealed oily waste discharges, exposed by a berth inspection in Pennsylvania. The case is in the oil record book prosecution.

ROUTES

A corridor priced at $116bn. Russia says it needs RUB10trn by 2035 for ports, rail, inland waterways, an expanded nuclear icebreaker fleet and a much larger ice-class merchant fleet, targeting 110m to 150m tonnes of cargo against roughly 37m today. Sanctions make Chinese capital the obvious source, as set out in the Trans-Arctic corridor plan.

Every vessel named above has a page in our fleet database, with particulars, ownership and history where the record allows. The briefing runs each publishing day.