Splash 247 — 2026-09-25
Maritime and Ports
Shipping spent another week discovering that the same forces making it extraordinarily profitable are also storing up the ingredients for its next downturn.
The headline number came from Clarksons. Its cross-sector ClarkSea Index reached $64,569 a day, 27% above the previous all-time high set during the feverish markets of 2007. Unlike many historic shipping booms, strength is unusually broad: tankers are in another universe, but VLGCs, bulkers, containerships and car carriers are all generating formidable returns.
The 2020s have increasingly rewarded inefficiency. Covid clogged ports. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rearranged commodity flows. The Houthis sent ships around Africa. Sanctions fragmented tanker fleets. The Iran war has disrupted Hormuz and forced oil buyers to reach further for replacement barrels.
Middle East-China earnings sailed beyond $1m a day this month, three-year period business has been concluded around $100,000 a day and prompt ships have acquired scarcity value bordering on the absurd. Pantheon reportedly sold a 15-year-old VLCC for more than the cost of a newbuilding, while Onex has been assembling a fleet at speed and Trafigura is packaging its own growing VLCC interests for outside investors.
While owners count today’s cash, yards are counting tomorrow’s ships. The box sector provided perhaps the clearest warning. The containership orderbook has moved above 45% of the existing fleet by Linerlytica’s measure, with 1,925 vessels totalling 15.6m teu now contracted. Several smaller carriers have more tonnage on order than they currently operate, while Sea-Intelligence believes the largest global lines are heading towards a commercial battle for market share.
The timing could be awkward. Red Sea diversions have soaked up an enormous amount of effective capacity, but Suez routings are beginning to normalise. Every ship returning through the canal releases capacity without a yard delivering anything.
Even before that reckoning, container shipping is splitting in two. Clarksons described the gulf between transpacific and Asia-Europe spot rates as the widest ever seen “by some margin”, with Xeneta putting the Asia-US east coast rate more than $7,100 per feu above Asia-North Europe this week.
Fittingly, the recurring theme at this week’s inaugural Splash Singapore was resilience. Shipping executives talked about moving from “just-in-time” to “just-in-case”, carrying buffers that would once have looked inefficient and designing organisations around futures they cannot confidently predict. This theme forms the basis for this week’s Splash Wrap podcast below.