{"id":131268,"date":"2026-03-22T11:46:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shipping.einnews.com\/article\/901082997"},"modified":"2026-03-22T11:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:46:31","slug":"the-greek-shipping-tycoon-willing-to-take-his-chances-in-the-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/03\/22\/the-greek-shipping-tycoon-willing-to-take-his-chances-in-the-strait-of-hormuz\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greek shipping tycoon willing to take his chances in the Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img data-opt-id=758893364  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" fifu-lazy=\"1\" fifu-data-sizes=\"auto\" fifu-data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=75&resize=75&ssl=1 75w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=100&resize=100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=150&resize=150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=240&resize=240&ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=320&resize=320&ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=500&resize=500&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=640&resize=640&ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=800&resize=800&ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=1024&resize=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=1280&resize=1280&ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1&w=1600&resize=1600&ssl=1 1600w\" fifu-data-src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&width=1200&height=800&quality=80&smart=true&ssl=1\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<figure class=\"BodyImage__BodyImagePhoto-sc-14nv9tx-0 vKplZ\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/resizer\/v2\/GYO3365JN5H3NO55GE4RKMSSVQ.jpg?auth=6e89c072f0fa295cb820b21d2c183c5bfa54fc691be50ba497f4c32e0ec7cc71&amp;width=600&amp;height=400&amp;quality=80&amp;smart=true\" data-photo-viewer-index=\"0\"><span class=\"u-visually-hidden\">Open this photo in gallery:<\/span><\/a><figcaption class=\"c-image-figcap c-image-figcap--block\">\n<div class=\"figcap-grid\">\n<div class=\"figcap-cc\">\n<p class=\"figcap-text\"><span class=\"caption text-gmr-4\">Tanker Shenlong Suezmax carried oil from Saudi Arabia through the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month. The tanker is managed by Dynacom Tankers, according to Reuters, one of the few companies willing to send vessels through the waterway since the war began.<\/span><span class=\"credit text-gmr-5\">Rafiq Maqbool\/The Associated Press<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div>\n<div class=\"default__Toolbar-sc-12lzz6r-0 grffJf article-toolbar\">\n<div class=\"tgam-popover-container tgam-toggletip-container Toolbarstyles__ToggletipWithButtonStyled-sc-1rif7tm-1 cWQoaH c-button--article-toolbar article-toolbar-bookmark-menu\"><button aria-controls=\"article-toolbar-bookmark-toggletip\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-haspopup=\"true\" aria-label=\"Bookmark this article\" class=\"Button__StyledButton-sc-136o1ng-1 kvWUaG tgam-button tgam-button--icon-grey text-gml-2 Toolbarstyles__BookmarkButtonStyled-sc-1rif7tm-2 ieeOlK\" data-sophi-action=\"toggle bookmark menu\" data-sophi-feature=\"article toolbar bookmark denied\" data-sophi-label=\"Save for later\" id=\"article-toolbar-bookmark-btn\" type=\"button\"><span class=\"tgam-button__content\">Save for later<\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">When U.S. President Donald Trump called on the owners of oil tankers to \u201cshow some guts\u201d and sail through the Strait of Hormuz, he might have been thinking about George Prokopiou.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The billionaire Greek shipping tycoon has been one of the few willing to risk the dangerous waterway within striking distance of Iranian missiles and drones. His company, Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd., has sent seven ships into the strait since Iran\u2019s war with the U.S. and Israel began.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cThe Greek owners and operators have typically a higher risk appetite, a higher risk tolerance,\u201d said Bridget Diakun, an analyst with Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence, which provides maritime risk analysis. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Mr. Prokopiou, 79, certainly has a reputation for pushing the envelope. \u201cIf you are not a risk-taker, you are not in shipping,\u201d he told the shipping publication Tradewinds in 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">He bought his first ship in 1971, a tanker named Pennsylvania, and built one of the largest shipping conglomerates in the world, consisting of more than 100 vessels. Dynacom alone owns 73 tankers, including dozens of very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, which can transport as much as two million barrels of oil, and has orders for 50 more. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">He\u2019s also branched out into real estate, with more than 2,000 properties around the world, ranging from a stake in the Astir Palace Hotel in Athens to the city\u2019s historic Skaramangas Shipyards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Rarely seen without a trademark baseball cap, Mr. Prokopiou spends most of his spare time on his US$150-million superyacht called Dream, which is docked on the Athenian Riviera.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">He courted controversy after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by continuing to carry Russian oil. \u201cSanctions have never worked,\u201d he told a shipping conference in August, 2022. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Ukraine\u2019s National Agency on Corruption Prevention put Dynacom on its list of \u201cinternational sponsors of war\u201d in 2022 but removed the company a year later after negotiations. The list itself was pulled from public view in 2024. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text mv-16 l-inset text-pb-8\" data-sophi-feature=\"interstitial\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/business\/article-oil-shock-wider-economic-pain-canada\/\">How the oil shock could lead to wider economic pain for Canada<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Since the the war in Iran started three weeks ago, Mr. Prokopiou has not hesitated to seek a profit. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">While the costs of moving oil through the strait have skyrocketed \u2013 notably for insurance and extra pay for crew members willing to make the trips \u2013 the profit can be substantial. Companies such as Dynacom have been charging about US$400,000 per day to use their tankers, roughly four times the price before the war. Some of the vessels are for shipping while others are for storing oil at sea as land-based facilities around the Gulf reach capacity. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The Iranian military has managed to effectively close the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a critical passageway for roughly 20 per cent of the world\u2019s oil supply. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">So far, 16 vessels have been attacked and six others have reported incidents affecting their operations, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre. More than 700 ships remain trapped in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Some ships have been getting through. According to Lloyd\u2019s List, some 100 vessels have made the voyage since March 1, including bulk carriers, container ships and oil tankers. That\u2019s down from nearly 1,900 during the same period last year, but it\u2019s clear that at least a few owners are prepared to take their chances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Roughly one-quarter of the ships had a connection to Iran, 18 per cent had ties to Greek owners, and 10 per cent had links to China. Two ships connected to each of India and Pakistan also made the journey last week with Iran\u2019s explicit blessing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Dynacom has been by the far the biggest player among the Greek operators. Of the seven ships it has in the Gulf, two have gone through the strait \u2212 ostensibly carrying oil from Saudi Arabia to India \u2212 and the remainder have been loaded and ready to sail back out. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The company\u2019s success is being watched closely. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cI imagine if Dynacom is able to get all of its vessels out safely, that it will encourage others to try to do the same,\u201d Ms. Diakun said this week during a briefing organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">She added that \u201ceach and every single owner and operator is going to make their own decisions based on their risk profile and their risk appetite. And it\u2019s a very, very wide range.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">For its part, Iran has insisted that the strait remains open \u2013 to all ships save for U.S. and Israeli vessels. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Most of the ships navigating the strait keep their automatic identification systems, or AIS, turned on and sail close to the coast of Iran. That\u2019s likely to alert the Iranians, who have been checking carefully. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cBroadly speaking, it\u2019s anything that doesn\u2019t have a U.S. nexus or an Israeli nexus,\u201d Ms. Diakun said of the ships allowed through. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">The Iranians \u201care going to be casting a really wide net when they\u2019re looking for this. We understand they\u2019re asking a lot of details on historical ownership, ports of call, all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">It\u2019s likely Dynacom has made some arrangements with Iran to transit the strait. \u201cI would say there\u2019s not a ton of evidence to suggest that anyone has a free pass through the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">Mr. Prokopiou\u2019s risk appetite isn\u2019t welcomed by everyone. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-article-body__text text-pr-5\">\u201cIran has explicitly warned that ships will be targeted, so why would any company risk the lives of civilian crews?\u201d said Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the International Transport Workers\u2019 Federation, which represents thousands of seafarers. \u201cExecutives who knowingly send crews into a clearly declared war zone must expect to be held accountable for the consequences.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\"> <\/a><\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/blockads.fivefilters.org\/acceptable.html\"> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; Prokopiou. The billionaire Greek <span class=\"match\">shipping<\/span> tycoon has been one &#8230; are not in <span class=\"match\">shipping<\/span>,\u00e2\u0080\u009d he told the <span class=\"match\">shipping<\/span> publication Tradewinds in &#8230; built one of the largest <span class=\"match\">shipping<\/span> conglomerates in the world, &#8230; worked,\u00e2\u0080\u009d he told a <span class=\"match\">shipping<\/span> conference in August, 2022 &#8230;<\/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-131268","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\/131268","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=131268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}