TOVE KNUTSEN

The river Mosel in western Germany, an important route for grains and rapeseed shipments, has been closed to inland waterways shipping after an accident that damaged a lock, navigation authorities said.A lock at Mueden south of Koblenz has been damaged after a vessel collision and repairs are likely to last until spring 2025, possibly around late March, the WSA agency said. The river will be closed to cargo shipping during this period.Traders estimated that about 70 ships are blocked because of the damage, possibly causing delivery disruption.The Mosel is an important route for grain and rapeseed shipments including to and from the French port of Metz, they said.

With a strike possible again next month at East Coast and Gulf Coast container ports and President-elect Donald Trump planning to increase tariffs, the nation’s major container ports are expected to see a continued surge in imports through next spring, according to the Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.“Either a strike or new tariffs would be a blow to the economy and retailers are doing what they can to avoid the impact of either for as long as they can,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.

Taiwan raised its alert level on Monday saying China has set up seven zones of reserved airspace and deployed naval fleets and coast guard boats in what a security source described as the first military drills across a broad swathe of the region's waters.A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that China currently has nearly 90 navy and coast guard ships in waters near Taiwan, the southern Japanese islands and the East and South China Seas, of which around two-thirds were navy vessels.Beijing's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The crew of Panama-flagged cargo ship MV ISA STAR have been rescued in the Red Sea after sending a distress signal, the EU's Aspides naval mission said."All crew members aboard the MV ISA STAR have been rescued and will be transported to Djibouti, the nearest safe port of call," Aspides said in a statement posted on Facebook.The vessel had reported flooding in the engine room and the master requested assistance, it said, as its crew of 20 were forced to abandon it.One maritime security source told Reuters that the ship experienced engine problems and another source said that it had reported an internal explosion. Details on the current condition of the vessel were not immediately available.

This week at MarineLink…An Australian Prime Minister once famously (infamously) said: “Life wasn’t meant to be easy.”He could have been talking about the maze of IMO and EU regulations relating to new fuels, especially the concept of well-to-wake emissions.It’s not enough to have a clean-burning engine or even an onboard carbon capture system. Well-to-take emissions, upstream and out of the control of ship operators, will have to be factored in.This week, MarineLink reported that a CMA-CGM vessel bunkered bio-LNG in Rotterdam, and it highlighted another upstream complication: the need to verify the sustainable origins of any new fuel used.