Since Albanese’s pledge to return the port to Australian control and his center-left government’s landslide re-election in May, there has been little visible progress on its status.

Houthi rebels released footage on January 26, depicting a previous attack from a year prior in the Gulf of Aden against a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker.

The French navy said the tanker, which came from Murmansk on Russia’s Arctic coast, was boarded in the Alboran Sea, south of Spain, and taken to a mooring. 

In a year where shippers and carriers alike are preparing for more trade turmoil, Seroka stressed that the Port of Los Angeles "must be ready for whatever is coming."

This comes after the ocean carrier had conducted limited trial transits on some services through the Suez Canal in November and December of 2025.

Misrata free zone, established in 2000, is home to Libya’s largest commercial port that controls 60% of the North African country’s non-oil trade. 

With the Port of Long Beach expecting to handle 9 million TEUs in 2026, CEO Noel Hacegaba stressed the need to operate "like a 115-year startup."

Some ships have been sailing close to the Turkish coastline, rather than across the center of the Black Sea in the hope of avoiding Ukrainian drones.

The attacks risk further disrupting loadings at CPC, where planned shipments have already plunged due to bad winter weather and mooring damage from a recent drone strike. 

The drilling vessel is backed by Japanese government funding, and will spend a month collecting rare earth sludge along a four-mile-deep seabed.