Maritime Briefing of 4 October 2026

The 18,315 dwt, Palau-flagged Aroyat was hit on 27 September, apparently by an aerial drone, starting a large fire in her accommodation; she was disabled and towed back to Turkey, and her Turkish second engineer is missing. She had seven Egyptian, six Syrian and three Turkish crew. In September 2023 she was the first large bulker to return to Chornomorsk after the UN-sponsored grain corridor collapsed.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said after a meeting of defence ministers on 28 September that the Aspides mission does not have enough warships to meet demand.

Its defence ministry claimed strikes on 24 September on vessels it said carried military goods and on port infrastructure at Reni on the Danube, without naming the ships or giving their flags or the damage.

The Group of Friends on Safety and Security of Shipping and Seafarers, set up at the UN General Assembly with 23 other partners, follows the deaths of Indian seafarers on the Cape Dao off Oman, the Omorfi and the Golden Leo in the Black Sea; India's foreign minister called for attacks on merchant ships to stop.

The 70-metre Jia Hai Ke 7 loitered 38 nautical miles northwest of Itbayat in Batanes, near submarine cable corridors, ignored radio challenges and broadcast AIS positions that jumped from Xiamen to waters off Papua New Guinea on the same day.

Fire broke out on the night of 26 September east of Kamchatka with 29 crew aboard; 25 were rescued by the vessel Perseus and four were missing. A criminal case has been opened.

The 2006-built Baltic Star, under pilotage from Spain to Tuzla, lost power off Nara Point on 26 September and was taken to Karanlık Liman by the Turkish salvage tug Kurtarma-17 without disrupting traffic.

The Belize-flagged Seagull 9, carrying 9,000 tonnes of palm oil, suffered main engine failure and ballast tank flooding 37 nautical miles east-southeast of Paradip; a damage-control team from ICGS Vishwast stabilised her and her 23 crew, and she was towed to anchorage.

Sofrana Surville picked up the crew of the Australian boat after the collision.

The South Korean yard disclosed on 28 September a contract worth KRW680bn ($499.6m) for two LNG carriers from an Africa-based owner it did not name; shipbuilding circles place Eyal Ofer's Zodiac behind it, its first move into conventional LNG carriers.

Alphaliner puts its operated fleet at about 7.4 million TEU, 21.5% of global liner capacity, with the firm orderbook on top, roughly equal to the capacity of the entire liner industry 20 years ago.

Seven Islands Shipping paid close to $15.5m for the 50,000 dwt, 2006-built tanker from MT Maritime and renamed her Inspire, its second MR purchase this year.

Kotug International gains 11 operating offshore vessels and four under construction; Vortex keeps its name and management, and neither the price nor the size of the stake was disclosed.

The docks for the submarine base are worth about £6bn within a £15bn upgrade of the site, and £115m is set aside for a replacement for the research vessel Cefas Endeavour.

The fifth-generation Project 22220 ship, 173.3 metres and 60 MW, is being built for Atomflot at Baltic Shipyard, where her keel was laid in January 2024.

He succeeds Derk te Bokkel, who had led the Dutch shipbuilder since early 2023.

The Dutch marine contractor, which is expanding internationally, brought in the investment company as a partner.

The Department of Justice closed its investigation, and the companies expect to complete the deal in the fourth quarter.

The deal is worth about SAR2bn ($532.5m), with revenue from the end of the fourth quarter of 2026.

Normand Scorpion, built in 2009, and Normand Saracen, built in 2010, will support drilling for an unnamed client from the second and third quarters of 2027.

The 2011-built Norve has a letter of award for three wells in West Africa from mid-December 2026.

Work is due to start in mid-2027.

The first-phase scope off Mozambique covers trees, manifolds, umbilicals and controls.

The work is being done by its cable-laying vessel Boka Ocean.

The 300 MW plant will run on 46TS-SG gas engines, delivered in early 2029, to balance renewable output.

The stake in holding company Thaumas comes from R-Logitech, while Belgian investors SFPIM and PMV stay on; Euroports runs more than 50 terminals in ten European countries and China, handling over 70 million tonnes a year, and approvals are expected in the first quarter of 2027.

The move by ONE, HMM and Yang Ming adds to the container sector's retreat from Cape of Good Hope diversions.

Saudi crude shipped through Hormuz rose from 900,000 barrels a day in August to 3.6 million in September after the attack on the East-West Pipeline; transfers off Sohar now take more than ten days instead of five to seven.

Long-haul head-haul cargo will pay $150 per dry TEU and $190 per reefer TEU, back hauls and short-sea trades $75 and $95; the carrier is also launching a Poland Egypt Express service.

The status was notified on 25 September under the Indian Ports Act 2025; Paradip handled 150.41 million tonnes in 2024-25.

Plans to move up to 100 million tonnes a year from the Central African Republic through the Cameroonian deepwater port would create demand on that scale if the corridor approaches its planned size.

Among them were the container ships MSC Danit and MSC Paloma at Shenzhen, the bulk carriers Navios Venus at Okgye, AG Varvara at Townsville, Navix at Shanghai and Uno at Newcastle, the Portuguese-flagged tanker Swan Baltic at Hull, the Liberian-flagged crude tanker Lakshmi at London, the tankers Gulf Petroleum 4 at Constanta, Yorik at Yingkou and Annika at Malmö, and the general cargo ships Prima at Kocaeli and Platon at Kawasaki.

Fourteen deals were registered against five in August, worth about $1.54bn where values were disclosed, as five-year-old VLCCs rose 6.51% in a week to $180m.

The Pink Corridor project will identify the operational, security and safeguarding requirements for a theoretical nuclear-powered containership trading between the two ports. LR also signed an agreement with K Shipbuilding to develop an ethanol-fuelled 50,000 dwt MR tanker.

The South Korean owner is evaluating more medium-range tankers and an eventual move into gas shipping.