Panama Flag tonnage slips

Posted on September 30, 2026 by | Leave a comment

Geopolitics is playing a role in selection of flag states. That includes both US pressure for supply chain control by nations in the Americas against China, and reactions by China. But Panama also wants to cultivate a pristine image as a flag state that supports and enforces international rules.

According to the most recent Clarkson’s Research data, Marshall Islands now ranks ahead of Panama in fleet tonnage registered. Liberia remains first.

Panama’s drop has two causes.

First, Panama has been actively removing shadow fleet and older tonnage from their registry. These are usually ships that run a risk of maintenance problems. Panama now limits tankers and bulkers older than 15 years. This is a sign that Panama wants to be known as a trusted registry, safety-conscious and willing to enforce maritime safety and management rules.

Panama stands out for the age of its fleet. Its average ship is 19.5 years old, the oldest among the top five flags. Liberia averages 12.6 years, the Marshall Islands 12, Singapore 11.3 and Hong Kong 14.9.

Second, Panama and China are crossing swords over the Panama government’s seizure of the CK Hutchison port terminals at each end of the Panama Canal.

This comes after the Hong Kong-based terminal operator, went through a phase of trying to sell the terminals. The original consortium was led by US investment firm BlackRock. However, no agreement could be reached, and the government of China said they would prevent the acquisition.

This seems to be reasonable evidence that China was indeed counting on geopolitical leverage from governance of the two ports.

Accordingly, Panama’s government went to its courts, and Panama’s highest court found that the port management contracts were illegal, and CK Hutchison would be displaced as the terminal operator. Panama is currently bidding the port management contracts and has placed temporary operators in control at the two ports.

Some think that the Panama government was encouraged or asked by the US to get rid of the Chinese influence at its ports, and the seizure by the high court was the result.

Fallout from this seizure has been action by China against Panama-flagged ships at Chinese ports. Chinese leasing companies have subsequently required some owners to reflag away from Panama when arranging newbuilding finance. Heightened Chinese scrutiny of Panama-flagged ships followed Panama’s removal of CK Hutchison-linked operators.

Some shipowners are switching to another flag to be able to access Chinese ports. This could certainly cause a decline in registered tonnage.

Graphs below, courtesy of Splash 24/7, show sizes of the top 10 and top 5 flag states.

A graph illustrating the development of the world fleet, highlighting year-on-year growth percentages, alongside a bar chart showcasing the top 10 flag state fleets by size in million gross tons (m. GT) for September 2026.

Source: Clarksons Research, via Splash 24/7

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Sam Chambers September 25, 2026

https://splash247.com/panama-slips-to-third-in-global-flag-rankings/

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America’s copper paradox

Posted on September 27, 2026 by | Leave a comment

Copper is an important mineral in this electric and electronic age. It’s not exactly in short supply, but it takes a long time to start up new supply sources in the US. Taseko Mines harvested its first copper cathodes at Florence Copper in early March 2026, ending an roughly 18-year drought of entirely new US copper mines built from scratch. (See second article below).

Several mines are under development in Arizona. I’m an interested observer of mining; I worked for a very fine mining company long ago, which operated a very large copper mine outside Tucson AZ USA. I learned a lot about copper and other mining operations, much of which is now out of date— the world moves on!

The interest in this story is the intricacy of metals supply chains. It’s been impossible to build a smelter in the US in recent years. Smelters produce many noxious materials, and no one wants them nearby. So copper mined in the US must either be processed on-site, using a process called solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX-EW) or be shipped elsewhere to be upgraded to commercially usable copper. Affinity highlighted a critical bottleneck: smelting. Only two primary copper smelters remain operational in the country, meaning new domestic mine production does not necessarily translate into domestically refined metal. It has to be shipped overseas to be processed.

Rio Tinto’s giant Resolution Copper project in Arizona could eventually supply more than a quarter of US copper demand, according to Affinity. This project is forging ahead despite intense criticism from Native American tribes and citizens who deplore the landscape devastation an open pit copper mine creates. US law does not require mining operators to remediate land they have destroyed while mining.

To process the deep underground ore, Resolution Copper will perform the initial extraction and concentration on-site, but they will not do the final chemical refining on-site. Instead, they will use a two-stage approach: processing the ore into a high-grade powder called “concentrate,” and then shipping that material to external commercial customers for smelting and refining.

So many current plans do not eliminate the need for foreign involvement in metallic copper production.

Broker Banchero Costa reported that the US imported a record 225,094 tonnes of refined copper and copper alloys in July, the highest monthly total in data going back to 1990. The figure was up 78% month-on-month and 8% year-on-year as traders rushed material into the country ahead of possible tariffs.

It’s really hard to eliminate dependency on foreign infrastructure in today’s world. and perhaps we should not want to, but rather cultivate alliances and friendships with countries that can help us. Copper smelter capacity is spread around the world. Data below is from World Population Review.

Table showing copper smelter production by country for 2021, listing countries and their production values in tonnes.

Japan and Korea and India would be good candidates. Except for Chile and Canada, these countries are far from the US. Both also produce large quantities of copper. That means a large need in the US for shipping capacity to and from the foreign smelters.

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Sam Chambers September 17, 2026

https://splash247.com/americas-copper-paradox-sets-up-new-seaborne-trade-flows

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Written by Dean Belder Apr. 23, 2025 01:55PM PST

https://investingnews.com/next-us-copper-mine

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https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/copper-smelter-production-by-country

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Posted in Logistics, Mining, Shipping, Supply Chains

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Offshore Carbon Capture and Storage

Posted on September 19, 2026 by | Leave a comment

If carbon capture technology is ever to be useful, there have to be places to store the captured carbon. One place is deep in the earth, in abandoned oil wells. We’re seeing somewhat more interest in carbon capture in maritime, and also in manufacturing areas. Maritime is more of an issue, because the captured carbon must be stored onboard, and offloaded periodically.

One option is to sell the compressed cold carbon to industrial users. But there’s not enough demand if most ships were producing captured carbon. Already, onshore carbon capture can supply a good deal of the commercial need for CO2.

Reuse of carbon in this way is simply circular; it does not actually remove carbon from the natural environment, it simply recycles it. And many onshore facilities like power plants and cement processes could rather easily capture their carbon emissions.

All this carbon can’t simply be recycled; there must be a place to put it. It’s odd that there has not been more investment in places to sequester the captured carbon.

That’s why the INEOS announcement in the article below is interesting. INEOS is an international chemical company with headquarters in many countries. (They also co-own and operate Manchester United, a Premier League football club).

They have designed a complete system to sequester the carbon in the North Sea, called Greensand. The full value chain will be established. The captured CO2 will come from Danish biomethane plants.

Once captured, CO2 is liquefied, delivered by truck to a dedicated CO2 terminal at Port Esbjerg, shipped aboard Carbon Destroyer 1, the EU’s first purpose-built CO2 carrier, and injected into the Nini West reservoir in the Danish part of the North Sea, a depleted oil field some 250 km offshore, approximately 1,800 m beneath the seabed.

Currently the project can store 400000 tonnes annually, but plans to expand to between 4 and 8 million tonnes annually.

There are still institutional barriers limiting capture of CO2 at scale — regulations, infrastructure, and investment. Since we’re not going green on energy anytime soon, it’s time to start investing big time in carbon capture — technology and infrastructure.

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Bojan Lepic September 18, 2026

https://splash247.com/ineos-opens-eus-first-full-scale-offshore-ccs-project

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