Shipping’s 2050 Fuel Forecast, Helium Supply Shortages, and 54,000 Sea Miles for One Sausage Roll

This week, Nick and Raal examine how geopolitical disruption is exposing hidden dependencies across shipping: from helium shortages and future-fuel investment choices to soaring freight markets and cyber risk. They also trace the global supply chain behind a Greggs sausage roll, revealing how deeply everyday life depends on maritime trade.

CHAPTERS

• 01:03 Helium shortages and an unexpected shipping dependency
• 03:35 Qatar, Hormuz and the global helium supply chain
• 08:40 Shipping’s difficult alternative-fuel investment choices
• 15:20 What the newbuild engine mix says about 2050
• 19:00 Ammonia safety and the long road to fuel adoption
• 24:25 Could alternative fuels reshape tramp shipping?
• 40:19 The sea miles behind sausage rolls

Nick opens with one of shipping’s less obvious supply-chain vulnerabilities: helium. Its role in MRI scanners, semiconductor production and aerospace makes disruption to Qatari supply more consequential than the commodity’s profile might suggest. 

Raal then turns to study published by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) and Boston Consulting Group on shipping’s fuel transition and the decisions being embedded in today’s newbuild orderbook. The pair discuss the economics of conventional fuels, LNG, methanol, ammonia and onboard carbon capture, and why carbon pricing, hydrogen costs, bunkering availability and safety requirements make a 25-year investment decision exceptionally difficult. 

That uncertainty raises a bigger operational question. If future fuels are available only along selected corridors and port networks, could shipping become less flexible? Nick considers whether tighter dependence on known bunkering locations could constrain tramp operations and encourage more fixed trading patterns, while Raal points to combination carriers as an example of how the industry can extract more efficiency from established routes.

Nick brings that global system down to the scale of a single Greggs sausage roll, tracing ingredients and inputs across Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, India, Morocco, Ukraine and the US. 

The episode closes with a more immediate operational concern: a cluster of reported cyber incidents involving tankers and gas carriers. With allegations involving cargo-monitoring and control systems rather than only conventional IT or navigation, Nick and Raal discuss why cyber resilience is increasingly a safety and fleet-management issue, not simply an information-security problem.

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This episode is sponsored by Insight.

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