What moves your costs, your transit times and your cargo today.

Maritime risk again dominates the day: attacks are spreading within the Gulf while global fleet earnings have reached another record. In container shipping, developments are more specific and manageable: a sharp surcharge increase in Durban, service changes in India and a new operating cost in Milazzo.

THE DAY IN 30 SECONDS

• Two tankers were hit over the weekend in Gulf waters and the Strait of Hormuz.
• Maersk will raise its surcharge for 40-foot containers bound for Durban to US$900 on 1 November.
• The ClarkSea Index rose 12% in a week to a record US$84,951 per day.
• Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are calling on the EU to ban Russian grain transit through EU territory.
• GFS will split its Colombo-Cochin-Gulf service into separate eastern and western India rotations.
• Only 273 vessels were sent for recycling through September, extending the ageing of the global fleet.
• Maersk will charge €50 to handle VGM for containers exported from Milazzo from 9 November.
• The Belgian rail strike is reducing services today and affecting inland connections with Antwerp and Zeebrugge.
• Shikoku Electric has begun using artificial intelligence to coordinate coal procurement, inventories and vessel scheduling.
• Thoothukudi has opened two tanks for green methanol supply and is planning additional container capacity.

⚖️ TARIFFS AND TRADE POLICY

Baltic states call for ban on Russian grain transit

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have asked the European Commission and the European Council for an EU-wide ban on Russian grain transit through EU ports and land corridors. The measure has not yet been adopted: Estonia already applies a national ban on Russian and Belarusian products under chapter 10 of the Combined Nomenclature.

Russian shipments from Baltic and continental ports reached 1.16 million tonnes in September, compared with 216,000 tonnes in August. At the same time, observed cargoes from the Black Sea and Azov fell from 1.39 million tonnes to 201,000 tonnes.

Why it matters: an EU ban would close EU ports, railways and storage facilities to Russian grain in transit, although it would not prevent direct departures from Ust-Luga or Vysotsk. Grain flows from the Baltic or Black Sea would require particularly careful documentation of origin and intermediate ports.

What to watch: whether the proposal enters the agenda of the next European Council and whether Brussels proposes a common rule.

Source

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