For most of the past 25 years I have travelled most months, often two or three times a month and sometimes ten or 15 times a month when on one of my regular tours. Without taking the time to count, I reckon I average 30 return flights a year. This puts me squarely in the small category of frequent flyers who, a recent report says, are responsible for half of all global aviation emissions. “The global scale, distribution and growth of aviation: Implications for climate change”

(Source: Shipping Strategy Ltd based on Balitic Exchange Data) I’ve been wondering why the bulk carrier freight market has been uninspiring of late when we might expect it to be enjoying its seasonal peak, with added Coronavirus recovery stimulus. Is it something to do with coal? According to commodity reporting service Argus, global coal exports in January-October 2020 stood at 804 Mn T, down from 938 Mn T in the first 10 months of 2019. I’ve been digging around to see if I

Veteran readers of my macro commentaries, from Points of View at HSBC, to Hot Topics at Braemar, Macro Topics at Affinity and Macro Macchiato here at Shipping Strategy, will know my thesis that shipping has been the indespensible enabler of globalisation. The world's ship owners have provided mostly cheap, mostly safe and mostly reliable transport of raw materials and goods without charging charterers the full environmental cost of moving their stuff around the world from ext

A tumultuous week in the Anglo Saxon economies distracts from longer-term challenges A tumultuous week is beginning in the Anglo-Saxon economies. The ramifications of this US election will be felt for years. It is not so much that Trump is pro-business or that Biden is anti-oil. Those labels are too simplistic. The tragedy is that a win for either man will do nothing to dampen the flames of the culture wars that engulf the US, endangering its constitution and democratic proce