Infrastructure and Energy Archives - Russia Trading

March 4, 2026: Iran War Maritime Intelligence Daily

Maya Romi — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 16:50:10 +0000

At a Glance

The Strait of Hormuz remained effectively closed on March 3, with only four vessels crossing the corridor.
War-risk insurance withdrawals are reinforcing the reduction in commercial traffic through the Gulf.
More than 1,100 vessels experienced GPS and AIS interference during the early phase of the conflict.
Windward identified at least 35 electronic jamming clusters across the Gulf region.
Suez Canal crossings surged while Bab el-Mandeb traffic remained suppressed, reflecting shifting corridor dynamics.
Diversion traffic around the Cape of Good Hope continues to rise as operators commit to longer routes.
Port congestion indicators are beginning to appear across Gulf and Arabian Sea hubs.

Operational Overview

Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz declined further on March 3 as the closure declared by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards continued to deter most commercial movement through the world’s most critical energy chokepoint.

Only four vessels crossed the Strait during the day, representing a further 42.86% decline from March 2 and dramatically below the recent seven-day average of 77 crossings. The few vessels that did transit reflect residual movements rather than the return of commercial traffic.

Insurance markets are…

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Port of Baltimore Celebrates Recovery of its Container Business

The Maritime Executive — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 04:39:00 +0000

The Port of Baltimore is witnessing a remarkable recovery after the devastating effects of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in March 2024, with container throughput returning to 2023 levels.

Having witnessed its containerized business take a 41 percent nosedive in 2024 to roughly 740,000 TEU due to the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, Baltimore is seeing a recovery. Its piers handled 1.1 million TEU in 2025. The throughput exceeded the 2023 record by more than 5,000 TEU and came in a year that was characterized by uncertainty and volatility due to tariffs.

During the year, the port recorded 2,223 cargo vessel visits, surpassing the previous record of 2,137 ships set in 2023, representing a 21 percent increase over 2024. Another notable achievement in 2025 was the arrival of the second-largest ship to ever call at Baltimore. This came in November when the 366-meter Ever Model with a capacity of more than 15,000 containers called at the facility.

Baltimore attributed the arrival of the ship to ongoing business growth efforts centered on the port’s modernization of its infrastructures, among them the reopening of the 50-foot-deep, 400-foot-wide channel, and supersized cranes at the Seagirt Marine Terminal.

Though Baltimore has released the…

The New Sanctions Reality: How Multi-Sensor Fusion Detects What Paperwork Hides

Maya Romi — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:20:32 +0000

At a Glance

Sanctions compliance now requires seeing beyond AIS and paperwork to actual behavior at sea.
Deceptive shipping practices, dark fleets, and false flags exploit the limits of cooperative data and static documentation.
Multi-sensor fusion combines SAR, EO, RF, AIS, and behavioral analytics, and document validation to verify what ships really do.
This approach exposes hidden ship-to-ship transfers, fraudulent registries, and misdeclared trades that look “clean” on paper.
Windward’s Remote Sensing Intelligence and Document Validation solutions operationalize this fusion, giving compliance teams decision-ready insight instead of raw data.

Sanctions Compliance Has Outgrown Paper Trails

Sanctions regimes have become increasingly complex, coordinated, and aggressive. The U.S., EU, and UK now issue frequent updates targeting vessels, companies, sectors, and behaviors, not just obvious bad actors.

Yet most sanctions compliance workflows still start from the same two pillars:

Static documentation: Bills of Lading (BoL), Certificates of Origin (COO), ownership records, and insurance documents.
Cooperative signals: Primarily automatic identification systems (AIS), sometimes supplemented with manual checks and open-source…
Read more…

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Mitsubishi Launches Training Ship, First in 31 Years for Toyama College

The Maritime Executive — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 03:05:04 +0000

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding celebrated the naming and launch of the new training ship Wakashio Maru at its Enoura Plant on October 23. While it while be the fifth training ship for the National Institute of Technology at Toyama College, it will be the first new vessel built for the program in 31 years.

The new vessel, which was also the first built by MHI for the college, will go into service providing practical training in ocean navigation for mariners and is part of an effort by Japan to enhance training for the industry. The ship, which is scheduled to be handed over in March 2026, will also conduct surveys and experiments related to operations and the ocean for purposes such as a variety of educational and community contribution activities to train maritime personnel.

The ship will be approximately 370 gross tons with a capacity for 60. It will measure 56 meters (184 feet) and have an operating speed of 12.5 knots.

The vessel will include comfortable, individually tailored living quarters and design features to foster seamanship, the company reports. In addition to providing practical training environments with a navigational simulator and a training switchboard so that trainees can learn through hands-on experience, it will also have wooden decks that require…

Why Digitalization Is Crucial for Ship Documentation?

SB Nair — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:12:32 +0000

The maritime industry, responsible for transporting over 90% of global trade, has traditionally relied on paper-based documentation systems. However, this approach has led to inefficiencies, errors, and delays, impacting the overall supply chain.

Digitalisation of ship documentation provides a solution by making records faster, safer, and globally compliant. Transitioning to electronic systems helps shipping companies streamline operations, enhance security, and meet evolving regulatory standards, making digital documentation a strategic necessity for modern maritime operations.

Traditional vs. Digital Ship Documentation

To understand why digitalization is so crucial, it’s important to first examine traditional methods and then compare them with digital alternatives.

Paper-Based Limitations

Traditional ship documentation relies on physical paperwork for bills of lading, cargo manifests, and customs declarations. This method is slow, prone to errors, and labour-intensive, with misplaced or outdated documents often causing operational delays, financial losses, and compliance risks.

Digital Alternatives and Transformation

Digital documentation replaces paper with secure electronic records, enabling instant access, automated workflows, and version control. Centralised…

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Unprecedented Maritime Compliance Challenges Emerge from EU’s 18th Sanctions Package

Ziv Gidron — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 09:33:19 +0000

The European Union’s 18th sanctions package on Russia recalibrates global oil trades once again and intensifies shipping risk and compliance complexity across the maritime domain.

Western sanctions have already bifurcated global trade. Now, enforcement is similarly diverging: while the EU introduces a dynamic price cap mechanism, alongside the UK; the United States continues to uphold its $60 per barrel cap.

For the first time, flag registries and a refinery were directly sanctioned, amid sweeping adoption of secondary sanctions to tackle Russia sanctions evasion outside the EU27.

Expansion of Dark Fleet Sanctions

105 new vessels were added to the EU sanctions list which bans access to EU ports.

These tankers are part of the broader “dark fleet” used to evade the oil price cap through deceptive shipping practices such as:

Flag hopping and the use of fraudulent registries
AIS manipulation
Deliberately complex ownership and management structures

More than 440 tankers are now sanctioned by the EU.

100% of the newly sanctioned vessels were flagged as risky by Windward prior to their designation, mostly due to port calls in sanctioned regimes, dark activity, Location (GNSS) Manipulation, illicit ship-to-ship transfers, and suspicious cargo…

Vice Adm. Joanna Nunan Steps Down as USMMA Superintendent

News — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 02:51:11 +0000

The superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Vice Admiral Joanna M. Nunan, has announced her departure following the school’s Class of 2025 commencement ceremony. Deputy Superintendent Rear Admiral David M. Wulf will be departing as well.

The academy’s chief of staff, Capt. Anthony J. “Tony” Ceraolo (USCG, Ret’d) will serve as acting superintendent while the Department of Transportation conducts a search for a permanent replacement.

“I thank Vice Admiral Nunan and Rear Admiral Wulf for their service to our Nation and to our midshipmen,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, its critical mission, and its extraordinary midshipmen fully deserve the kind of dedication and commitment the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent brought to their roles at Kings Point.”

Nunan, a career Coast Guard officer, took on command of USMMA in December 2022. She was the 14th superintendent of the academy and the first woman to hold the role. Before taking charge at USMMA she headed up the Coast Guard’s HR enterprise as Deputy for Personnel Readiness. According to her official biography, she helped lead efforts to expand diversity and inclusion in the Coast Guard, including policy changes to increase retention…

MSC ELSA 3 Incident: A Wake-Up Call for Safer Vessel Operations

SB Nair — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 05:32:57 +0000

Introduction

The capsizing of MSC ELSA 3 sent shockwaves through the maritime community. Carrying 640 containers—13 with hazardous cargo such as calcium carbide—and over 450 tonnes of fuel oil, its sudden tilt triggered widespread environmental alerts and economic disruption along Kerala’s coastline. While the immediate cause was deemed a ballast-system failure, such mechanical incidents are almost always the culmination of deeper gaps: missed maintenance, crew competency shortfalls, and unmonitored fatigue.

This article examines how stricter maintenance protocols, enhanced competence management, and robust fatigue monitoring could have averted the catastrophe. We then highlight how ShipMate’s integrated PMS (Planned Maintenance System), CMS (Competence Management System) and TITO (Time In Time Out work-rest manager) provide a proactive framework to prevent similar failures.

1. Why It Happened: Beyond the Ballast Failure

A mechanical failure in the ballast system was the final trigger, but such failures rarely occur in isolation. Several interrelated factors may have increased the risk of instability:

Maintenance Gaps and Deferred Inspections: Every ballast valve, pipeline and hydraulic actuator follows strict service intervals. If inspections were delayed—perhaps…

MARAD Issues the License for the Delfin LNG Deepwater Port Application

News — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 01:54:52 +0000

Today, the Maritime Administration issued a license authorizing to Delfin LNG, LLC, to own, construct, operate, and eventually decommission a deepwater port, to export Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from the United States.

The Delfin LNG, LLC deepwater port facility will transport LNG to the global market from the United States (U.S.) Federal waters, approximately 37.4 to 40.8 nautical miles off the coast of Cameron Parish, Louisiana.

The Maritime Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard worked with approximately 15 cooperating federal agencies along with the States of Texas and Louisiana to review the Delfin LNG, LLC application. These agencies submitted recommendations for environmental and other license conditions.

The Delfin LNG, LLC deepwater port license is being issued in accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order titled, “Unleashing American Energy,” signed January 20, 2025. This deepwater port project will be the first offshore LNG export project in the United States.

The products and services herein described in this press release are not endorsed by The Maritime Executive.

Russia’s Shadow Fleet’s Been Busy…

eric.danis@wnwd.com — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:21:30 +0000

This week marked the three-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (February 24, 2025). As we’ve discussed at length, the war has driven the emergence of Russia’s shadow fleet, or gray and dark fleets. They are used for smuggling Russian cargo while appearing legitimate, or at least trying to evade detection.

As if commemorating its own anniversary, the shadow fleet has been exceptionally active these past few weeks.

Let’s dive in!

First-Time Visits

Over the recent 30-day period (January 25-February 24, 2025), 461 vessels flagged for sanctions compliance risk related to the Russian regime conducted 716 first-time visits to ports around the world.

First-time visits are not inherently suspicious, but when occurring in bulk, specifically by vessels of interest that are related to sanctioned regimes, they could indicate:

New sanction evasion methods
New trade relations being forged
Other noteworthy trends

This is why first-time visits in new geographies constitute an anomaly that is flagged in Windward’s platform, allowing users to scrutinize and monitor such events.

A closer look at where these first visits occurred shows that the highest number was unexpectedly in Ukraine (30 visits), followed by Malaysia (25 visits). All…

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