It seems only a few years ago that a prominent shipowner confided that the then-current generation of very large tankers would be the last ever built.
The writing was on the wall for hydrocarbons and with it would be the need to shift enormous quantities of crude oil around the world. Well, we know where that idea went.
One must take such assertions with a certain amount of caution, because since then, despite the shrieking of the “stop oil” crowd, and the normal volatilities of the market, there has been a positive renaissance in VLCC construction to meet the still growing demand for the black stuff.
In a world where drilling is continuing apace, everywhere the green fanatics do not reign, demand for these ships seems likely to continue.
The warning, it has transpired, failed to account for the realities of energy demand and the practicalities of replacing a global fuel and feedstock. Alternatives cannot be wished into being and with the benefit of hindsight, one might have thought of that earlier.
It might be suggested that more often than not, the most confident forecasts of every kind of expert will be ripped into shreds by unexpected events.
You might wonder sometimes why anyone bothers. It is, we are told, why using a suite of different scenarios is the favoured strategy employed by the experts these days, thus reducing the risk of acute embarrassment.
And in the world of commercial shipping, the very definition of derived demand, and one in which the markets move faster than even the most energetic shipbuilders, it is quite rare to back an undisputed winner.
This is the case in every shipping sector, driven by supply chains that can prove alarmingly fragile and prone to geopolitical issues, that suddenly heave over the horizon, all of which is alarmingly so in 2026, with knobs on.
If you are looking for a supercharged engine driving geopolitical uncertainty, the fertile brain of the US President has become the subject of global scrutiny like few others. What on earth will he turn his attention to next, once the current pot of crises has been stirred to his satisfaction?
It is difficult to suggest historical precedents for such an effusion of strange, earth-shaking ideas from a single person, in a democratic country that seems to have, almost overnight, become an autocracy.
To find a parallel, one commentator was suggesting you must track back to ancient Rome, where mental instability was frequently combined with enormous power. The Emperor Caligula, it was suggested, might offer us a comparable personality, although others of less classical bent favoured Napoleon or Kaiser Wilhelm II as individuals whose erratic behaviour and unpredictability shook the eras they inhabited.
It is probably not advisable to go too far down this route, pursuing such an analogy, if one is considering a visit to the US any time soon.
But if you are running a shipping company, attempting to work out a business model for the next few weeks, let alone the next five years, has become something of a nightmare. For the mainline container operators, the return through Suez seemed a cautious possibility, with all its implications for tonne-miles, until the disturbances in Iran and the Trumpian threats to that wretched country’s leaders.
“Locked and loaded?” You will worry that the Houthis may also be priming their weaponry. And what is going to happen to demand, when swingeing tariffs can suddenly emerge on a whim, because some leader dared to disagree with the current presidential enthusiasm?
Insurers, who have already reacted to the hostilities in the Black Sea, are made immediately nervous, reading that a carrier group is heading towards Middle East waters.
And while few will regret that the writing may be on the wall for the “dark fleet”, with the seventh seizure of a sanctioned tanker this week, the Venezuelan problem remains very much a work in progress.
The unsavoury regime is still in post even after the seizure of Maduro, and the region remains on tenterhooks, worrying about what the Trumpian eye will light upon, once the Greenland “purchase” has been concluded to his satisfaction, and the Gaza “oversight committee” convened.
“Keeping calm and carrying on” might seem very inadequate advice, but it is the best that is on offer.
