UK Master Mariner · FICArb · Singapore Tankers, chokepoints, crew — from the bridge. Where steel, charter, and law meet.
Singapore 🇸🇬
Joined April 2009
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Investing: QatarEnergy signs a 30-year deal to buy US LNG from Cheniere.
The world's top exporter is buying a rival's cargo to bypass its own chokepoint.
Hormuz risk is now a long-term contract.
TradeWinds: MSC doubles down on ultra-large boxships as rivals chase 24,000-TEU.
Bridge rule: scale is the enemy of resilience. The bigger the hull, the fewer chokepoints it can safely transit.
Efficiency is beautiful until the water gets narrow.
IRGC threatens US bases if the Navy keeps escorting tankers in Hormuz.
The moment a warship pulls alongside, the merchant ship inherits the target.
The escort is the trigger.
EIA: US crude inventories drop 3.1M barrels. When the Middle East chokes, the world drains the US Gulf.
You cannot act as the global swing supplier with a thinning domestic buffer.
NYT: US and Israel prepare renewed strikes on Iran after the midterms.
The calendar is political; the war-risk premium is not. The tanker market has to price the post-election countdown right now.
U.S. Treasury sanctions a Panama law firm for servicing the Iranian shadow fleet.
The net is moving upstream. You can dark a transponder and hide a hull, but you can't hide the paperwork that keeps it legal.
The war is now on the ink.
Goldman: Rising shipping costs signal upward oil price revisions.
The desk is finally pricing the chokepoint tax into the barrel. You can't separate the freight from the war risk anymore. The physical constraint is now the financial baseline.
Vortexa (20 Oct): China's non-Iranian Middle East crude arrivals are on track for about 4.5 mb/d in October, the most since the war began. Saudi alone seen above 2 mb/d.
Bridge Rule: Fixed for a Saudi load? Expect a queue and plan bunkers and stores for the wait.
The US importing Russian diesel is the ultimate proof the Middle East chokepoint is broken. You don't buy from your adversary unless your own supply lines have failed.
TradeWinds: Dynacom Suezmax breaks the $100m price barrier.
At that price, the asset only works if war rates become the permanent baseline.
Peacetime math is dead. The chokepoint tax just hit the balance sheet.
A sevenfold surge isn't a spike; it's the new baseline. That freight rate is just the invoice for dark transits, war-risk premiums, and convoys. The chokepoint tax is permanent.
Global shipping costs for oil have surged about sevenfold over the past year because of the war in the Middle East and they are likely to remain elevated, according to Goldman Sachs bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
A pink humpback dolphin off Qantab, near Muscat. A welcome sight on Oman's coast while every other headline from these waters is about Hormuz.
Captain Singh retweeted
That's a big hole
Should probably stop risking Hormuz transits
This quoted post is unavailable.
Iran now claims a third supertanker has hit its mines. No ship named. JMIC found no evidence for the earlier claims, and CENTCOM says it's missiles and drones.
Bridge Rule: Hormuz transit? Double the lookouts and keep the fire main pressurised.
MOL's Ultramax Green Winds and her Wind Challenger hard sail. MOL expects the rig to cut fuel and GHG by about 7–16%, depending on route and conditions.
Reuters: Taiwan's CPC bought six Aframax cargoes last week instead of its usual two to three VLCCs a month, traders said. Freight now drives the buy.
Bridge Rule: Aframax fixed long-haul? Confirm bunkers, stores and crew reliefs cover the full passage.
The IMO asks how to keep seafarers safe. The answer isn't in a conference hall—it's in citadel drills and war-risk premiums at the chokepoints.
Safety is physical.
“Whether we are talking about security, fair treatment, training or wellbeing, we are discussing the same question: How do we ensure that #seafarers remain safe, protected & prepared for the future?” IMO Maritime Safety Director, D. Chevallier, at Crew Connect Global,Philippines
