OCEAN: Piracy off Somalia & more – 11th Nov 2025

Ahoy from BA! This is the Rorshok Ocean Update from the 11th of November twenty twenty-five. A summary of what's going down in the 70% surface of the Earth covered in saltwater.

Let’s kick off this edition with an important meeting about climate change. The 30th annual UN climate meeting or COP30 began on Monday the 10th and will run until Friday the 21st.

Countries gather at this annual UN climate meeting to revise their commitments under the Paris Agreement and deal with the rising pressures from extreme weather, sea-level rise, and biodiversity loss.

This year, the COP30 is taking place in Belém, Brazil, marking a pivotal moment for global climate action. The UK Prime Minister, the president of France, the UN Secretary General, and the World Bank president were the attendees. However, China's President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump were absent. China and the US are the two biggest emitters of planet-warming gases.

Listen to the Rorshok Multilateral Update to learn more about the COP30. Link in the show notes.

The US not only brings uncertainties to the Paris climate agreement and green initiatives, but it also won the title of the first country ever to export more than ten million metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas or LNG in a single month, which was in October twenty twenty-five.

The US is now the largest LNG exporter in the world and has been increasing sales with four record-setting months in twenty twenty-five. The surge was driven primarily by Venture Global and Cheniere Energy, which together accounted for 72% of U.S. exports. Europe remained the largest destination, accounting for 69% of total exports.

Despite this achievement, the U.S. LNG sector faces criticism for its environmental impact because the Environmental Integrity Project revealed that all seven U.S. LNG export terminals broke federal air pollution laws over the past five years. Fishermen near these export terminals have also reported that their catches have fallen by over 50%.

In an update to a story from our last show, to prevent ongoing arrests of Indian fishermen for alleged intrusion into Sri Lankan waters near Katchatheevu, Sajith Premadasa, a member of the Sri Lankan parliament, has urged both India and Sri Lanka to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach, rather than resolving individual incidents, to address the long-standing fishermen dispute in the Palk Strait region.

Sajith emphasized that a lasting solution must be grounded in international maritime law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and must tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

On the other side of the Indian Ocean, piracy is thriving. On Thursday, the 6th, armed attackers aboard a small craft fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the Malta-flagged merchant tanker off Somalia.

The tanker was heading from Sikka, India, to Durban, South Africa when the attack happened. All twenty-four crew members locked themselves in the ship’s citadel and were unharmed when the EU Naval Force’s Operation Atalanta intervened and secured the vessel.

This marks the first ship hijacking in over a year, signalling a resurgence of Somali piracy amid reduced naval patrols and regional instability.

The South China Sea isn’t peaceful either. According to an article from the Antara news outlet from Thursday the 6th, the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries of Indonesia has impounded 255 vessels involved in illegal fishing across Indonesian waters between January and November twenty twenty-five.

The impounded vessels include twenty-two foreign ships, with some coming from Vietnam and Malaysia.

The North Natuna Sea is the most vulnerable to illegal fishing activities by foreign vessels. Indonesia has impounded forty-one Indonesian and foreign ships throughout this year.

The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries stated that foreign vessels will face criminal prosecution, while domestic offenders will be subject to administrative fines.

In other news, the world’s third-largest container shipping company CMA CGM announced it will register ten new 24,000-container vessels under the French flag over the next three years.

These ships cost about two billion dollars, will be built in China and powered by liquefied natural gas. After CMA CGM received calls to contribute more to France's debt-stricken economy, the company decided to hire more French seafarers, which will cost an additional eighteen to twenty million dollars per year in crew expenses.

The move responds to scrutiny in France over the company’s foreign investments and signals its commitment to supporting the domestic maritime sector.

Meanwhile, the US-headquartered electronics and communications company Thales Defense & Security introduced its next-generation Global Maritime Distress and Safety System or GMDSS terminal WaveLINK at the international maritime exhibition Europort twenty twenty-five, which began on Tuesday, the 4th.

The system includes full GMDSS features, such as distress alerting, Safety Voice, Maritime Safety Information, Long Range Identification and Tracking, and the Ship Security Alert System. WaveLINK is built not only as an emergency device but also to assist with daily tasks like fish-catch reporting and search-and-rescue efforts.

Operators can upgrade existing systems to full GMDSS compliance by adding a panel, avoiding new satellite hardware.

Commercial availability is expected by mid-twenty twenty-six.

In unrelated news, on Thursday, the 6th, Kim Min-seok, the South Korean Prime Minister, stated that the South Korean-owned Philly Shipyard in the US currently lacks the capacity to build nuclear-powered submarines.

Kim’s remarks followed a statement by US President Donald Trump confirming authorization for South Korea to build such a vessel at the yard. South Korea’s Defense Minister emphasized that domestic construction is logical, considering the country’s shipbuilding expertise, and highlighted that detailed discussions with the US regarding submarine building are still ongoing.

Analysts warn the project faces major infrastructure, regulatory and timeline challenges.

Let’s turn our focus to the Southern Hemisphere. Australia is heading into a potentially dangerous twenty twenty-five-twenty twenty-six cyclone season after sea surface temperatures along its northern coasts hit record highs.

Experts said the twenty twenty-five-twenty twenty-six cyclone season, which began in November, was showing worrying signs, as sea surface temperatures were far above normal. Northern waters have reached up to thirty-one degrees Celsius (eighty-eight Fahrenheit), well above the twenty-six degrees Celsius (seventy-nine Fahrenheit) threshold needed for cyclone formation.

Meteorologists warn that this excess of ocean heat could fuel more intense storms than usual, increasing the risk of damaging winds, heavy rain, and flooding across coastal communities.

On another note, researchers with the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration discovered ice cores in the Allan Hills region of East Antarctica that are approximately six million years old, marking the oldest directly dated ice and trapped air found.

This provides geological evidence indicating warmer temperatures and higher sea levels.

The findings significantly extend paleoclimate records and help refine models of natural climate variability.

Between twenty twenty-six and twenty thirty-one, the team hopes to conduct a new, comprehensive, and longer-term study of this region.

In some tragic news, a fire broke out on the container ship during cargo operations at the Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, killing three people and injuring three others on Friday, the 7th.

An explosion occurred aboard the vessel as cargo was being discharged, followed by a later fire. Emergency services at the port responded with fireboats and rescue teams.

The chartered company Maersk confirmed the fatalities, stated investigations are underway, and noted that port operations were temporarily suspended for safety and review.

Let’s close this edition with news on offshore drilling, as Greece has signed its first exploratory offshore drilling agreement in over four decades.

The exploration is expected to start by the end of twenty twenty-six. ExxonMobil will take a 60% stake and operate the venture if test drilling is successful.

The deal highlights rising U.S. influence in the eastern Mediterranean’s energy sector and aligns with Greece’s bid to become a strategic gas hub, especially amid the European push to reduce reliance on Russian supplies.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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See you next week!