WELCOME back. We start 2025 where we left 2024 — mired in obfuscation, shadowy shipping operations and the looming inevitability of a serious casualty on the horizon.

It took most of last year for European politicians to wake up to the fact that Western sanctions have created the conditions for a dangerously lucrative substandard shipping fleet to flourish. But if any of them have up their sleeve a simple solution then they are yet to share it with the rest of us.

When senior shipping voices like that of Frontline chief executive Lars Barstad receive airtime in the Financial Times to warn that a serious maritime disaster is now inevitable and pin the blame squarely on politicians “sleeping behind the wheel”, it is fair to say that the issue has finally gone mainstream.

But that does not necessarily mean a fix is in sight.

The industry’s warnings that an ungoverned shadow fleet poses huge environmental and security risk have, thus far, largely gone unheeded.

The suggestion that this is somehow the fault of the International Maritime Organization is a massive oversimplification of a complicated and multi-faceted political problem, but Barstad is right in suggesting that a coordinated international response is required.

Moves are afoot within the IMO to decouple the safety aspects of the issue from the thornier political problem of economic weaponry, but don’t hold your breath. UN politics and bi-lateral sanctions do not tend to mix well as a rule and the IMO has limited powers to engage.

Meanwhile, the US, EU and UK are determined to double down on the sanctions. The latest reports out of the US signal an imminent influx of US sanctions targeting two Russian oil companies, more than 100 tankers, oil traders and Russian insurance companies.

The net effect of this blanket blacklisting is that there is an increasingly large portion of the fleet operating outside of the rules based order of trade, unvetted, unmaintained, uninsured and largely untouchable.

At this point last year, we told you: “We are witnessing the rise of a divided industry, where the majority are jumping through hoops to meet the increasingly costly, complex regulatory requirements and efficiencies demanded by hard won global standards. But another, entirely separate fleet, carrying a significant chunk of global energy trades, is operating outside of that system.”

Sadly, we are starting 2025 having seen that forecast play out and yet the political solutions are still nowhere to be seen. While we would love to offer you a rosier forecast for 2026, it looks like things are going to get worse before they better.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

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