Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Media Kit
Foreign-flagged tanker Skylight after an Iranian strike earlier this month (Omani social media)

Trump Urges Foreign Ships to Resume Oil Deliveries to Asian Markets

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Senior U.S. Navy officials tour Hyundai Heavy Industries, 2025 (USN file image)

The United States Can’t Deter China Without Allied Shipyards

Published Mar 10, 2026 8:48 PM by CIMSEC

[By Patrick M. Cronin and David Glick] Industrial endurance and allied integration are indispensable to making deterrence-by-denial against China credible under the 2026 National Defense Strategy. The Trump administration’s Maritime Action Plan rightly elevates cooperation with South Korea and Japan. But viewing these allies as a temporary bridge to U.S. revitalization understates the scale and longevity of the China challenge. What is needed is a fully integrated, long-term allied shipbuilding ecosystem, that can generate surge capacity, distributed production, and wartime...

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drugs found under the hull of a containership

Cocaine Hidden Under Ship Discovered in San Juan Using Drones

Published Mar 10, 2026 7:46 PM by The Maritime Executive

In the latest example of drugs being smuggled under the hull of a cargo ship, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reports it found 97 kilograms (214 pounds) of cocaine during a routine inspection of an inbound cargo ship. The report said the drugs were found in a parasitic device attached to the hull of the vessel. The seizure occurred during a routine inspection that took place on February 26, as the containership Med Star (27,244 dwt) was arriving at San...

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Port of Anterp

Strike Paralyzes Shipping at Antwerp and Other Belgian Ports

Published Mar 10, 2026 7:06 PM by The Maritime Executive

A strike that started on Monday, March 9, quickly spiraled across Belgium and has once again left most shipping at a standstill. What was originally expected to be a short-duration event has been extended and will roll into a national strike day on Thursday, raising the prospects for extensive delays and the potential for ferry and other services in Belgium to also be curtailed. The strike is a renewal of the dispute between the unions representing the maritime trades, including...

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Delaware Bay

Scrap Metal Barge Burns in Delaware Bay

Published Mar 10, 2026 6:56 PM by The Maritime Executive

On Tuesday, a scrap metal fire broke out aboard a barge on the Delaware Bay, prompting a multi-agency response from local fire departments. At about 0800 hours, the U.S. Coast Guard received reports of a fire aboard the barge American Tracker at a position in the middle of the estuary. The crewmembers of the tug towing the barge were unharmed, and vessel traffic was not affected. At least three nearby cities dispatched marine firefighting assets to the scene, and fireboats...

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Offshore

Safaniya

Report: Saudi Aramco Shuts Down Two Supergiant Offshore Oil Fields

Saudi Arabia has joined Kuwait and Iraq in beginning the process of drawing down oil production, a response to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a shortage of storage options. The Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Saudi Aramco has shut down the Safaniya and Zuluf fields, taking two million barrels per day of production offline. Safaniya is the world's largest offshore oil field, containing more than 30 billion barrels of oil in proven reserves, and Saudi Aramco...

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Shipbuilding

State of Maine training ship

Third US Training Ship State of Maine Delivered to MARAD

The third newly built U.S. training ship for the merchant marine, the State of Maine, was handed over to TOTE Services and delivered to the U.S. Maritime Administration. It will be the fifth training vessel, and the first purpose-built vessel, to be operated by the Maine Maritime Academy, located in Castine, Maine. The handover to the U.S. government took place at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard, and the vessel is scheduled to depart for Maine in the coming days. Once it...

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Environment

Trawlers

Study: Ocean Warming Puts "Constant Negative Pressure" on Fish Populations

A new meta-study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution suggests that ocean warming has an outsize impact on the total amount of fish in the water, enough to have major implications for global fisheries. The study, led by researchers at Spain's Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, looked at hundreds of thousands of studies of fish populations in the Northern Hemisphere over a period of nearly 30 years, spanning 1993-2021. The vast data set covered more than 1,500 fish species and...

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Business

Cristobal Panama

China Reports it Held “Talks” with Maersk and MSC in Beijing

China’s Ministry of Transport issued a one-sentence notice reporting it had held “talks” with both Maersk and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company. While no details were announced, it quickly raised speculation that Chinese officials were reacting to the two companies' assumption of the port terminal operations in Panama after the government annulled CK Hutchison’s concession and seized the operations in Balboa and Cristobal. In the unusual statement, the Ministry of Transport announced it had “held separate talks with relevant officials from...

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