AS we continue our series to prepare you for the year ahead, attention turn to the container market, which is dominated by one big question: will carriers return to the Red Sea this year or not?

Some have already signalled a gradual return, while other have kept their counsel.

Lloyd’s List deputy editor Linton Nightingale and Infospectrum senior analyst Neil Dekker explain why a return to the Red Sea could spell a rate hike initially, but will ultimately be bad news for carriers.

Plus, Linton explains why the demise of the workhorse of the container market could be bad news for some ports.

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It's been an exciting start to the year.

That somewhat of an understatement comes from Lloyd’s List senior reporter Greg Miller, who in this week’s episode of the Lloyd’s List Podcast tries to make sense of the crazy start to 2026 and how geopolitical events might affect tanker markets.

Trump’s intervention in Venezuela has changed the game completely, but it follows historically high crude tanker rates in 2025, reaching the six-figure mark at some points, before trending downwards towards the end of the year.

Greg talks us through the market outlook for both crude and product tankers in the wake of such instability and gives you a big picture of the year ahead for one of shipping’s most exciting sectors.

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As events in 2026 continue to move at considerable pace, ensuring compliance and assessing risk as a shipping company is only becoming more difficult.

Help is at hand though, as Lloyd’s List senior risk and compliance analyst Bridget Diakun and maritime risk analyst Tomer Raanan point out some key trends to keep an eye on in the year ahead.

They explain how the shadow fleet is evolving and why an end to Russian sanctions doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the shadow fleet too.

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REGIME change in Venezuela, shifting shadow fleets and the small matter of how to decarbonise one of the world’s most critical industries.

Who’d be a shipowner in 2026?

To kick off the new year, Lloyd’s List is bringing you a series of shorter podcast episodes highlighting key issues to watch out for in each of our key topics, including the tanker, container and dry bulk markets, risk and compliance plus the ongoing decarbonisation saga.

But to start with, editor-in-chief Richard Meade and APAC editor Cichen Shen give you a broader, overall picture of the most pressing issues facing shipping. And the list is a long one.

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This episode is brought to you by Wirana Shipping

Until the opening decade of this century, shipowners were among the chief beneficiaries of what was known at the time as ‘relationship banking’.

The market was dominated by a handful of British and German banks, who usually just allowed their ship finance teams to get on with it and didn’t ask too many questions.

It seemed that there were few problems that couldn’t be sorted out over a three-bottle lunch at a rather expensive restaurant.

If the top brass were ever sufficiently impertinent as to ask why leniency had yet again been extended, they were told they simply didn’t understand the cyclical nature of the shipping industry.

Then a bunch of derivatives traders came along and spoiled the party. In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 onwards, shipping loans could be bought for just cents on the dollar and bad shipping loans even forced a number of long-established banks to close their doors altogether.

Private equity rushed in and, by and large, lost its shirt. To repurpose the earlier euphemism, it simply didn’t understand the cyclical nature of the shipping industry and was never going to wait around long enough to get its money back.

While European banks still lend to blue chip shipowners, many smaller and medium-sized owners have turned to Asian, and especially Chinese, leasing companies to source their S&P needs.

For a while that worked, especially because the Asian lenders were politically mandated to keep domestic shipyard orderbooks as full as possible.

But even that arrangement has been under strain in the last 12 months, thanks to tariff and port fee tensions between Washington and Beijing.

So what happens now? If you need to borrow money next year, who is going to lend it to you and how much will you be expected to pay?

Joining David on the podcast this week are:

Stephen Fewster, global head of shipping finance, ING Bank

Pankaj Khanna, chief executive, Heidmar Maritime Holdings

Dimitris Karamacheras, partner, Hill Dickinson

This episode of the Lloyd's List Podcast is brought to you by Lloyd's Register - visit www.lr.org for more information.

LAST week, Lloyd’s List held its Annual Outlook Forum at the beautiful Trinity House in London, sponsored by Lloyd’s Register.

Having gathered a baseline of crowdsourced knowledge from Lloyd’s List readers, we invited a star-studded line-up of shipping’s sharpest minds to join us for a discussion of the opportunities and threats that will be shaping shipping next year and beyond.

In a year dominated by tariffs, port fees, continuing security concerns in the Red and Black Seas, and the faltering of shipping’s decarbonisation drive, our panel reveal what keeps them awake at night and discuss shipping’s incredible resilience in the face of increasingly challenging conditions.

Joining editor-in-chief Richard Meade on this episode are:

Cargill Ocean Transportation president, Jan Dieleman

Hanwha Ocean Europe chief executive, Claire Wright

Lloyd’s Register chief executive, Nick Brown

Zodiac Maritime head of regulatory affairs, Katy Ware

Sky news economics editor, Ed Conway

Download our Key Takeaways document from this event, including our Outlook Survey 2025 results, here: https://info.lloydslistintelligence.com/london-outlook-forum-key-takeaways

PRESIDENT Trump tops this year’s Top 100 People list and ranks as the most influential person in the shipping industry.

But why? Lloyd’s List editor-in-chief Richard Meade and deputy editor Linton Nightingale discuss why there was only ever one decision to be made for the top spot and point out some other high-profile entries in this year’s rankings.

The full list is available to subscribers via the link below:

https://www.lloydslist.com/one-hundred-edition-sixteen

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In this candid podcast, Bureau Veritas Marine and Offshore’s cyber security technical leader Panagiotis Anastasiou outlines his concerns about what he views as shipping’s limited approach to cyber security and a need for increased awareness of its importance.

His career-long knowledge and experience of cyber security arrangements in the aerospace sector — particularly with satellite technology — gives him an authoritative overview of cyber security and, for an industry that has autonomous vessels in development, he had expected to find shipping to be very advanced in its cyber security implementation and attitudes. Instead, he found that was not the case.

His remarks include an example of a recent incident in which a service provider’s systems were compromised, affecting at least 120 ships. The breach was subsequently repaired but the full story prompts Anastasiou to observe that “we fall in the same hole again and again”.

He says this is because of limited efforts to prepare for cyber security difficulties. In contrast to shipping’s approach, cyber security is the starting point when satellite systems are designed, he says. Controls, procedures and governance are built on that foundation, with ground infrastructure and component design following on. This approach should be common to all industries, including marine, he says.

He acknowledges that maritime regulations now apply to cyber security which make it mandatory to take precautions, but he believes that shipowners and their system suppliers should go further.

Attitudes must change

So, he explains in the podcast that attitudes must change and he outlines some ideas about how cyber security awareness could be strengthened by better – and repeated – education and cyber drills that are backed up by companies’ tested policies on how to respond to cyber security incidents.

He goes on to describe how a cyber attack on a vessel might be triggered by an attack on shoreside systems, given the growing connectivity between ship and shore and vice versa. Not only that, but the implications of a maritime cyber attack can extend far beyond the company itself, since any resulting operational delay could have an impact on an entire supply chain.

Class societies have addressed cyber security concerns by developing two Unified Requirements — UR 26 and UR 27 — and Anastasiou was a member of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) Cyber Systems Panel that developed them.

But he suggests in the podcast that these should be viewed as starting points for class societies to evolve requirements to match the pace of change in technology. As a response to his remarks, he encourages listeners to conduct internal assessments of their own cyber security and to reach out to their class societies for guidance to improve their resilience.

More than two years has passed since the hijacking of car carrier Galaxy Leader by the Houthis, which signalled the advent of a campaign of terror from the Yemeni rebel group on international shipping.

In that time, several vessels have been sunk and many seafarers have unfortunately lost their lives.

The impact on global shipping has of course been sizeable, with most key container carriers deciding to reroute services via the Cape of Good Hope instead.

But Houthi activity has quelled in recent weeks, with no vessels attacked since Eternity C. in July, after a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas; the Houthis’ purported aim is to support the people of Gaza.

Whispers of a return have grown into murmurs, with comments from Maersk suggesting a return to the Red Sea may be sooner rather than later.

The Danish giant said it would “take steps” to return to the Suez Canal and Red Sea “as soon as conditions allow” after a meeting with the Suez Canal Authority.

So, should we expect a return to the Red Sea imminently then?

Joining Joshua on the podcast this week are:

Ian Ralby, founder and chief executive, IR Consilium

Jakob Larsen, chief security and safety officer, BIMCO

Bridget Diakun, senior risk and compliance analyst, Lloyd’s List

Take the Outlook survey here: https://lloydslist.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1X5A55mVBKM156m

CLIMATE diplomacy is not dead, but it’s not looking too healthy right now.

A month after the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework was put on life support for a year in the hope that a cure could be found, many of the same politicians, negotiators, non-governmental organisations, claques and hacks still reeling from that setback headed to Brazil for this year’s COP climate summit.

A push by more than 80 countries for plans to quit fossil fuels ultimately failed, but states did manage a less ambitious agreement to keep the wheels from falling off.

So where does that leave shipping?

“Not dead yet” is hardly the rallying cry that will spur a generation of bold zero-carbon innovation and investment.

We gathered insights from people who were in the thick of the COP negotiations for shipping, and where the IMO discussions leave us and what happens next.

Joining Richard on the podcast this week are:

Ellie Besley-Gould, chief executive of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative

Katharine Palmer, shipping lead at the UN High-Level Climate Champions team

Christiaan De Beukelaer, senior lecturer in culture and climate at the University of Melbourne and author of ‘Trade Winds’

Beatriz Martinez Romera, associate professor of environmental and climate change law at the University of Copenhagen

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