At least six ships have been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz since Sunday, the latest being an oil tanker. The risk of passage in the waterway continues to escalate, directly affecting oil tanker insurance rates and detour costs.
According to gCaptain, the data comes from C.H. Robinson's "October 2026 Edge Report": East Asia, Northern Europe, and the Indian subcontinent are the most congested; on-time performance has worsened due to typhoons, the situation in the Middle East, and Panama Canal restrictions; the capacity of Asia-US routes has tightened around China's National Day Golden Week, and the risk of dumping has increased.
On October 1, WCI fell 1% month-on-month to $4,434/40ft: Shanghai-New York rose 1% to $10,428, Shanghai-Los Angeles remained stable at $7,835; Shanghai-Genoa fell 3% to $3,702, Shanghai-Rotterdam fell 2% to $3,399. Suez's traffic volume in the 39th week was +68% year-on-year, The rebound in shipping capacity has suppressed freight rates in Asia and Europe; Drewry expects freight rates to continue to decline in the week after the Golden Week.
According to the International Ship Network (September 30), Saudi Arabia has restarted the bypass arrangement under the Hormuz crisis, and very large crude carriers (VLCC) have resumed loading oil at Yanbu Port on the Red Sea, reducing their dependence on Hormuz loading.
The BIMCO Maritime Safety, Environmental Protection and Digitalization Committee recently held a meeting, focusing on the safety of the Strait of Hormuz, the safe adoption of alternative fuels such as ammonia/hydrogen/methanol, the modular nuclear reactor safety framework, and the progress of the IMO net zero framework and EU ETS revisions.
IMO is discussing a legally binding international convention on biofouling. The proposed content includes mandatory biofouling assessment, cleaning requirements linked to thresholds, rectification time limits, certification and enforcement measures, which may ultimately affect the ship's international operating qualifications. BIMCO calls on the industry to submit research as soon as possible to avoid the convention being "ghostwritten" for others.
According to Hellenic Shipping News, a joint report by the UCL Energy Institute and the Getting to Zero Coalition pointed out: Shipping has deviated from the 2030 target trajectory on the three levers of demand, financing, and policy; the 2025 scalable zero-emission fuel (SZEF) production is less than 0.02 EJ (breaking the target of 0.10 EJ); the proportion of SZEF combustible ship orders on hand dropped from 9.5% to 5.7%; the number of methanol bunkering ports increased from 19 to 29. The trial run of the two-stroke engine of a large ammonia fuel ship was completed.