Innovative rapidly inflating balloon technology could keep damaged ships afloat. But more fine-tuning needs to be done and there are some concerns about reliability.

China's regulators have blocked the P3 mega-alliance between Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM on the grounds that it infringes the country's competition laws between Asia and Europe, particularly with respect to the lines' combined market share of 46.7 percent. The law enforcers appear to believe that the cost reductions gained by the P3 carriers would either have been offset by this unacceptably high risk of market concentration, or would not have been passed back to shippers satisfactorily. Where to now?

High cube 40-foot containers are stealing a march on traditional 40-foot equipment and by the end of 2013 represented just short of 50 percent of the maritime container fleet, according to Drewry's recently published Container Census report.

Maersk Line, the container-shipping unit of Danish conglomerate A.P. Møller-Maersk, expects the Chinese government to decide in June on the company's application for a shipping alliance with two other shipping operators, in a bid to reduce operating costs amid weak international trade.

When DWT tanker Shoko Maru caught on fire recently it was described as one of the worst accidents in energy shipping in the past decade. And a recent study shows that product tankers are considered the most accident-prone shipping types, followed by LPG tankers.

In a recent decision affecting ocean freight operators, the International Maritime Organization's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) adopted amendments to the MARPOL Convention to set a date for the implementation of "Tier III" standards within emission control areas (ECAs) and to make the IMO Member State Audit Scheme mandatory.