Splash Wrap: War-risk map widens

X.com Splash’s Middle East coverage this week has followed the rapid expansion of maritime risk across the Gulf and Red Sea. Reporting has examined renewed US-Iran exchanges , Tehran’s attempts to reshape transit through Hormuz, and the prospect of fees or political conditions being imposed on commercial passage. In the Red Sea, Splash tracked Houthi threats against Saudi-linked shipping , attacks on tankers and the proposed creation of a Saudi-led maritime coalition. Meanwhile, a floating storage and regasification unit and an LNG carrier were hit on Wednesday in an apparent drone attack at Egypt’s Damietta terminal , potentially extending the Middle East’s rapidly widening maritime conflict into the Mediterranean. Commercial shipping is increasingly becoming a direct target, not collateral damage, across the Black Sea with Ukraine and Russia stepping up attacks this week, and Moscow now contemplating doing what it has done in the Baltic, namely arming cargo vessels. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Philippines launched this week the first vessel constructed at its Subic shipyard , marking the start of full-scale shipbuilding operations at the revived facility. The giant yard was opened at the peak of a previous shipbuilding boom in the first decade of the century by another Korean shipbuilder before going bust. Splash is now a triple portal – with sister titles covering maritime technology and ports . Pick of the articles this week on SplashTech was penned by Irene Rosberg of Copenhagen Business School. AI can optimise fuel use, improve collision avoidance and detect machinery problems, but shipping remains too complex and unpredictable to remove people from decisions , she argued. Successful maritime businesses will be those using technology responsibly to improve decisions, resilience and safety, while involving seafarers and shore staff in shaping how change is introduced. Over at Splash Ports , meanwhile, this week’s editor’s pick looked at how ports are moving artificial intelligence and digital twins from trials into daily operations, but integration rather than technology is emerging as the main obstacle. New research highlights legacy systems, fragmented data, high implementation costs and workforce concerns as barriers to wider adoption. Few shipping books take more than half a century to reach publication. For maritime historian Professor Howard Dick and co-author Stephen Kentwell, however, the story of legendary Hong Kong shipowner C. Y. Tung became a lifelong project stretching from an encounter with one of his early containerships in 1970 to the launch of their biography in Hong Kong this month. The finished work, C. Y. Tung (1912–1982) and the Rise of Modern Chinese Shipping , is more than the life of one tycoon. It charts the emergence of Chinese deepsea shipping from a marginal position beneath the established European, American and Japanese lines to a force capable of competing across every major maritime sector. Maritime CEO caught up with one of the authors this week to discuss the new book. This week’s Splash Wrap podcast, carried below, explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping the volatile global shipping market. Advanced AI models, like gated recurrent units (GRUs), significantly improve freight rate forecasting for cyclical trends. However, algorithms cannot predict sudden geopolitical conflicts or climate disruptions, which now drive market movements. In response, long-term charters are giving way to short-term, index-linked contracts and new outcome markets. While AI processes data and optimisation engines calculate complex commercial sequences, human operators remain essential for setting constraints and making final decisions. Ultimately, the pod argues success relies on a human’s psychological capacity to navigate continuous uncertainty. Follow Us Splash Splash is Asia Shipping Media’s flagship title offering timely, informed and global news from the maritime industry 24/7. Newsletter DAILY SPLASH NEWSLETTER Subscribe now for FREE daily news updates. Subscribe Read Next August 3, 2026 NYK moves to absorb NS United in near $1bn deal August 3, 2026 MISC orders small-scale LNG carrier for Japan trade August 3, 2026 New Yangtze books Changhong newcastlemax pair August 3, 2026 Subsea7 lands up to $150m Shell pipeline job off Brunei July 31, 2026 Singapore hands out eight LNG bunker licences