Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

Geopolitical expert Jacob Shapiro highlights shift to a multi-polar world could have a profound impact on energy trade flows and shipping June 22, 2026 Giving a keynote presentation at Marine Money in New York Jacob Shapiro from the Bespoke Group detailed a world where competing great powers would also result in competing supply chains. Shapiro, in his remarks, described a globe that is now “seeing a transition to a multi-polar world.” For the energy markets the future will see “competing great powers”, with five or six “competing spheres of trade and industrial influence.” Implicit in his viewpoint is that this scenario will see competing supply chains in contrast with “making supply chains lean and efficient” in the unipolar world that has pervaded from the 1980s to the present. “It’s no longer about accessing a single global marketplace, and everyone playing by a standard set of international laws and rules…” he said, going on to suggest that the applicable rules would be determined by which trading bloc the transition is occurring in. Related:Mine clearance top priority for Hormuz safety say tanker owners In a crucial observation, he said, “In energy, it’s moving from a situation where everyone is competing for the same barrel, to a situation where everyone seeks not to be competing for that same barrel- looking for the cheapest and most secure [within a consumer’s specific sphere]”. Shapiro pointed to “the biggest example of multipolarity being the ability of the Houthis, a rag tag bunch…were able to close the Bab-el-Mandeb in 2023.” He went on to suggest that Iran noticed this earlier success, and that theUS’inability to open the Strait of Hormuz “tells you everything about how we are movingawayfrom an era of [US unipolar domination].” Shapiro set to provide a backdrop for the several hundred shipping investors in attendance at Marine Money although as such, he did not explicitly mention maritime trade flows other than the ongoing Hormuz situation. However, his views, including that oil is declining in importance- if they are borne out in the coming years, would have profound impacts on shipping. One question, addressed the following day at a luncheon organised by the Society of Maritime Arbitrators (SMA), saw Mats Saether, CEO of Nordisk Defense Club, concerns the history and then, ultimately, the future of the dark fleet as the world splits apart. Saether, with a different view than Shapiro on how world geographical splits would evolve, told the SMA audience that economic warfare, in the form ofsanctionswhich gave rise to the dark fleet, has been increasingly moving in parallel with physical warfare. In Saether’s view,China, a large importer of oil from the Middle East, has watched closely asRussia’soil and gas (in both import and export trades) has been significantly shut off through sanctions regime. Related:Ardmore Shipping adds two more tankers at Wuhu Shipyard In response to a question, he said that the dark fleet encompasses about 23% of the large tanker (VLCC-Suezmax-Aframax) fleet, with Iran and Venezuela usingVLCC’s, and Russia using Suezmax and Aframaxes. To mask the origin of cargoes ship-to-ship Transfers (STS) are regularly employed by the dark fleet, “there’s a lot of inefficiencies in that,” he said. Looking at safety standards, an issue brought up throughout the session, Saether talked about parts of the Chinese fleet operating in accordance with proper international standards, but expressed concern about the troubling practices of the “murky” portion of the fleet, also bringing cargoes into China. “They have to have a fleet that’s dark and dirty [serving sanctioned refinery destinations] and then the clean refineries that take the normal vessels.” Read more about: Barry Parker New York Correspondent Barry Parker is a New York-based maritime specialist and writer, associated with Seatrade since 1980. His early work was in drybulk chartering, and in the early 1990s he moved into shipping finance where he served as a deal-maker and analyst with a leading maritime merchant bank. Since the late 1990s he has worked for a group of select clients on various maritime projects, also remaining active as a writer. Barry Parker is the author of an Eco-tanker study for CLSA and a presentation to the Baltic Exchange Freight Market User Group on the arbitrage of tanker FFAs with listed tanker equities.