\u201cThey are looking at evolving routes, such as the Arctic route, which will most likely be available, maybe not next year, but possibly middle of the next decade. That isn\u2019t really a long time when you structure your shipyards for 30 or 40 years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
But due to fast-changing environments in the Arabian and Black Seas<\/a>, families have recently refocused on evolving regulatory sanctions against military aggressors and choice of where to locate logistical and corporate facilities to avoid conflict zones. \u201cGiven that it\u2019s a long game, they care a lot about financing conditions and availability of capital,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Both on the stage and in the restaurants of the InterContinental Athenaeum hotel, where shipping brokers and vessel owners were busy doing deals, it became clear wealthy Greek families see themselves caught in a squeeze between political and economic pressures.<\/p>\n While many traditional Greek shippers are used to trading with Russian firms and gas providers, buying vessels in Chinese shipyards and relying on Beijing to finance boats and port facilities, the Greek government is increasingly aligning with American naval interests.<\/p>\n Like other countries in the region, the real economy in Greece is currently torn between these conflicting interests<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must not allow Russian gas to enter in the back door,\u201d said Stavros Papastavrou, <\/strong>Greece\u2019s minister of environment and energy in an onstage interview with PWM. The role of shipping families \u201ccan become so dynamic, it\u2019s far more than transporting goods from the producer to the consumer\u201d, said the minister, suggesting new routes would allow Greece to achieve \u201ca broader geostrategic dimension\u201d.<\/p>\n Secure long-term trading routes and energy supply agreements have \u201cthe possibility to create stability and prosperity in the region and protect the region far more than Nato can do\u201d, said Papastavrou. \u201cBecause if you bring prosperity into a region, if you create connectivity, if you can make this 100-million polity as one unit, that is the best security that we can provide to the citizens of this region.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than relying on Russia and China for shipping dividends, his government is backing a \u201cVertical Gas Corridor\u201d, an EU project facilitating maritime transportation of liquefied natural gas from the US \u2014 via Greek terminals in Alexandroupolis and Revithoussa island \u2014 to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Ukraine.<\/p>\n The minister was in Washington recently to sign the agreement and secure ties with US energy companies including Chevron and ExxonMobil. \u201cI have great faith in the Greek shipowners and the industry they are carrying,\u201d said Papastavrou. \u201cThey are the ones who would be supporting the US LNG introduction into Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n His government talks about combining the energy initiative with America\u2019s Maritime Action Plan<\/a>, aiming to revitalise the US as a shipbuilding and nautical trade power.<\/p>\n Commentators agree that maritime and technological rivalry between the US and China will increasingly define trade patterns. \u201cWe are in a race and both of those two countries are at the forefront. I think it\u2019s going to continue that way,\u201d said Arnab Das, an independent global market strategist, until recently a senior economist at US funds house Invesco.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be very complicated, nobody else is going to accept to be subordinated. That\u2019s the unfolding world order and it\u2019s a very interesting world, that calls for a lot of diversification, including in taking risk in your asset portfolios, in your shipping lanes and in your sources of insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n American shipyards, he said, \u201care only just getting started; it is one area in which they have lost before it\u2019s begun. They will have some success over a long period of time, in becoming more of a merchant, marine and naval power by building out capacity. They have done it before and they can do it again.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s a question of price and the specifics of the policy. If they can stabilise and have policies that are more set in stone than what we have at the moment, then they can succeed at least to a significant extent.\u201d<\/p>\n But the US has had to back down twice in recent trade negotiations with China because Beijing has access to rare earth metals, he warned, with Washington failing to factor this into economic forecasts. Shipbuilding and operation of fleets can suffer similarly, he believes. \u201cAnybody of any significance in the world is going through that calculus.\u201d<\/p>\n Speakers at the summit concurred that Washington\u2019s lack of geopolitical strategy made things more complicated for wealthy families trading across borders. \u201cTrump has done a really good job of upsetting everybody \u2014 Canada, Mexico, Asia, the Middle East, Europe \u2014 you name it. Everybody\u2019s upset. I am not really sure which strategy this amounts to,\u201d said Edmund Shing, global chief investment officer at BNP Paribas Wealth Management.<\/p>\n Looking at the Middle East, \u201cis there a strategy around Iran? You can talk about decapitating the leadership, OK, if that was it, and that fails, what\u2019s plan B? I am not sure he has a plan B and that concerns me.\u201d<\/p>\n Investors, he says, need to position themselves to back resource-producing economies in the Americas and Asia, singling out Canada and Kazakhstan as major energy producers ripe for partnership.<\/p>\n \u201cThe losers are certainly countries without resources, and that\u2019s unfortunately all of Europe,\u201d said Shing, with Japan having issues around securing enough energy to maintain growth.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s be blunt. We are moving rapidly to a world where energy security is going to cost money,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone else in the world, China included, needs to react, so basically you\u2019re joining the race as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Washington has failed to consider the \u201cday after\u201d its strikes and the impact of Iran\u2019s closing the Strait of Hormuz <\/a>\u2014 a crucial route for global oil and gas \u2014 according to Louise Tumchewics, research fellow at the Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark and a regular contributor to PWM.<\/p>\n She expects continued Iranian missile strikes on shipping in the Gulf. \u201cWhat I think Iran has learned very well, both from its experiences from the Iran-Iraq War and the Iraq war from 2003, is that they can exploit the cost and material asymmetry.\u201d <\/p>\n While defending against US and Israeli strikes from \u201crich, sophisticated, high-tech western weapons\u201d, they produce \u201cthings that can be rapidly assembled, that can be sold to partners and then indigenised. Their partners and allies aren\u2019t necessarily reliant on Iran for assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n It is unlikely that \u201cwe will go back to calm waters\u201d anytime soon, said Tumchewics, as Iranian missiles \u201care far more cost-effective and far more easily replaced than their western equivalents, which allows them to keep sustaining attacks\u201d.<\/p>\n Continued competition for control of strategic ports, and shipping chokepoints including the Bosphorus, Panama and Suez Canals, and the Strait of Hormuz and Taiwan will shape the foreign agendas of global powers, said professor Athanasios Platias from the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Piraeus.<\/p>\n He believes the sea has once again become a \u201ccontested domain\u201d, with a \u201cweaponised shipping industry\u201d now a key part of economic warfare between the US and China. The US war against Iran \u2014 as well as policies on Venezuela, Panama and Greenland \u2014 all constitute a \u201croll back strategy\u201d against China.<\/p>\n At least 10 dry bulk and crude oil tankers operated by Greek companies, and at least two Chinese vessels, are reported to have sailed through the strait between Oman and Iran since the start of US and Israeli strikes on February 28. Indian tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas have also been allowed to pass through.<\/p>\n China cannot afford to \u201close control of the sea and the control of the straits\u201d if it is to maintain its status as \u201cnumber one trading power\u201d, said Platias. \u201cIt takes one strait \u2014 the Strait of Malacca \u2014 to destroy the Chinese economy: the imports of energy and the export of goods.\u201d<\/p>\n But this geopolitical instability can be beneficial to shipping families. \u201cWhen you close the straits, for example the Suez, you have to go around Africa. When there is disturbance with energy due to the war in Ukraine, you have to go through the sea to bring energy from the US. Everything that creates inefficiency is a bonus for the shipowners,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the money in shipping is made when you have war, when you have embargoes, when you have the Iranian Revolution, when you have situations like this.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … by the Latsis Greek shipping<\/span> dynasty. Speaking at the Slide2Open Shipping<\/span> Finance summit … aiming to revitalise the US as a shipbuilding<\/span> and nautical trade power. … a \u00e2\u0080\u009ccontested domain\u00e2\u0080\u009d, with a \u00e2\u0080\u009cweaponised shipping<\/span> industry\u00e2\u0080\u009d now a key part of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Vertical corridors<\/h2>\n
No US plan<\/h2>\n
Winners and losers<\/h2>\n