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Liberia Crosses Historic 300 Million GT Threshold, Tightens Grip on Global Ship Registry Leadership
Liberia Crosses Historic 300 Million GT Threshold, Tightens Grip on Global Ship Registry Leadership
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Liberian Ship Registry has written another chapter into global maritime history, becoming the first flag administration in the world to surpass 300 million gross tons (GT) in registered fleet size, a feat that further entrenches its standing as the largest and fastest-growing ship registry on the planet.
Figures released by international maritime data and intelligence provider Clarksons show that the Liberian-flagged fleet, administered on behalf of the Liberian Maritime Authority by the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry (LISCR), hit 307.3 million gross tons as of June 8, 2026 — a tonnage figure that dwarfs the combined capacity of several traditional maritime nations and underscores just how dominant the West African nation’s flag has become in the eyes of global shipowners.
From Challenger to Undisputed Leader
For Nigerian maritime stakeholders watching the global flag-state landscape, the scale of Liberia’s ascent is worth pausing on. As recently as June 2023, Liberia overtook Panama — a registry that had held the title of the world’s largest for three uninterrupted decades, stretching back to 1993 — to become the new number one by gross tonnage. At that point, Liberia’s fleet stood at 246.5 million GT.
In the three years since dethroning Panama, Liberia has added more than 60 million gross tons to its books, a rate of expansion that few open registries, including those competing aggressively for newbuilding business, have managed to match. The Registry now accounts for roughly 17 percent of the entire global merchant fleet by tonnage, with 6,092 vessels currently flying the Liberian flag, according to data from IHS.
Newbuildings Driving the Surge
Behind the headline number lies a structural shift in how shipowners are choosing to flag their vessels, particularly newly constructed ones. Over the past two years, Liberia has firmly established itself as the preferred flag of choice for new tonnage entering the water, capturing an extraordinary 28 percent of all global newbuilding gross tonnage during that period.
This newbuilding dominance has translated directly into the Registry’s most recent growth figures: between June 2025 and June 2026 alone, the Liberian fleet expanded by 9.3 percent in tonnage — a growth rate that, on a fleet this size, represents tens of millions of additional gross tons in just twelve months.
LISCR Leadership Reacts
Reacting to the milestone, LISCR Chief Executive Officer, Alfonso Castillero, attributed the achievement to the Registry’s global workforce and the sustained confidence shipowners have placed in the Liberian flag.
“This milestone belongs to every member of the Registry’s team. Our people, across every office, in every time zone, in every discipline, show up every single day with a commitment to our clients and to the standards that make this registry what it is,” Castillero said.
He added: “Behind every gross tonne is a vessel, and behind every vessel is a shipowner who chose to trust us. That trust is something we never take for granted, and it is the team that earns it, day after day.”
Nigeria Watch
For Nigeria’s maritime sector, Liberia’s record-setting growth offers more than a curiosity from the world of flag administration — it is a live case study in how an open registry, built on service quality, regulatory responsiveness and global trust, can capture an outsized share of one of shipping’s most strategically important commodities: where vessels are flagged.
Nigeria does not operate as an international open registry in the Liberian or Panamanian mould, and its cabotage regime under the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act is built around very different objectives — protecting indigenous tonnage and shipowners rather than competing for global flag-of-convenience traffic. Even so, the scale and speed of Liberia’s growth carries indirect relevance for stakeholders across Apapa, Tin Can Island, Onne, Lekki and the wider Nigerian port complex.
A significant share of the foreign-owned vessels calling at Nigerian terminals, including the crude carriers, product tankers and container ships that move Nigerian export and import cargo, are likely to be Liberian-flagged given the Registry’s near 17 percent share of global tonnage and its grip on newbuilding registrations. That means NIMASA’s port state control inspectors, NPA’s terminal operations teams and Nigerian Navy maritime domain awareness units are routinely interacting with the Liberian flag administration’s standards, certification regimes and survey requirements — whether through SOLAS, MARPOL or STCW compliance checks on calling vessels.
The episode also offers a pointed reference point as Nigeria continues its long-running effort to revive its national shipping line and build out indigenous tonnage capacity through mechanisms such as the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF). Liberia’s success illustrates how registry reputation, ease of registration, competitive fee structures and responsive client service can become decisive factors in where shipowners choose to place their vessels — lessons that may inform Nigeria’s own efforts, including NIMASA’s recent ship registry reform partnership with Malta, as the country seeks to make its own flag more attractive to both indigenous and, potentially, foreign-owned tonnage in the years ahead.
For now, Liberia’s 307.3 million GT milestone stands as a benchmark figure against which the ambitions of every other registry — including any future expansion of Nigeria’s own fleet registration regime — will inevitably be measured.
Two More Tankers Struck in Strait of Hormuz as Attack Count Hits Five in a Week
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
Two more tankers have been hit while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leaving two seafarers with minor injuries and pushing the number of reported attacks or security incidents against commercial vessels in the waterway to at least five since 16 September.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said an inbound tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile on Monday. Two crew members sustained minor injuries, but the vessel stayed under its own power and continued to its next port, with no environmental impact reported.
Hours later, UKMTO issued a second alert after an outbound LPG tanker reported being struck by debris from unknown projectiles. All crew were reported safe and the vessel also continued its voyage. Authorities are investigating both incidents, and UKMTO has not attributed either attack to a specific actor.
The two strikes build on a Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) advisory covering three earlier attacks between 16 and 18 September, one of which saw a tanker’s hull breached by a projectile, sparking a fire. JMIC continues to rate the threat level in the strait as “severe,” citing a high likelihood of deliberate hostile action and pointing to a pattern of harassment by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — drone overflights, surveillance of merchant vessels and VHF hailing, alongside the direct attacks.
Traffic through the chokepoint remains sharply depressed. Only 17 commodity vessels were visibly transiting over the weekend, down from 37 the week before and against a pre-war daily average of roughly 125. That figure excludes vessels sailing with their AIS transponders switched off, and JMIC notes a persistent gap between visible and actual traffic.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigerian maritime stakeholders, the Hormuz crisis is no longer a distant Gulf story. It is a cost line. Every fresh escalation feeds directly into the war-risk insurance premiums and freight rates that Nigerian importers, refiners and shipping agents ultimately absorb, since global tanker and container capacity pulled off the Hormuz route tightens supply elsewhere and pushes rates up across long-haul trades, including those serving West African ports.
The renewed attacks also sharpen the stakes around Nigeria’s push for a stronger voice at the IMO Council table and its broader blue-economy diplomacy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola. A sustained Gulf disruption is exactly the kind of systemic shock that tests whether Nigeria’s seat translates into influence over how global shipping risk, insurance and rerouting decisions are made, rather than Nigeria simply absorbing the downstream cost.
Locally, the episode is a reminder of the layered nature of “maritime security” as a policy word: the Deep Blue Project and Gulf of Guinea security architecture address piracy and armed robbery close to home, but Nigeria’s ports and shippers remain exposed to security failures thousands of kilometres away in the Gulf.
Waterways News will continue tracking how the Hormuz situation feeds into freight cost pressure at Nigerian ports and NIMASA’s public messaging on the issue.
Blue Economy
Oyetola Confirms 7,059 Nigerian Seafarers Placed Onboard Vessels, Orders NIMASA to Fast-Track CVFF Disbursement
Oyetola Confirms 7,059 Nigerian Seafarers Placed Onboard Vessels, Orders NIMASA to Fast-Track CVFF Disbursement
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, says 7,059 Nigerian seafarers have so far been placed onboard vessels to acquire seatime experience, part of what he described as the Federal Government’s broader push to build a competitive indigenous maritime workforce.
The Minister, in a statement issued through his Special Adviser, Dr Bolaji Akinola, at the weekend, also directed the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to work more closely with the 12 approved Primary Lending Institutions (PLIs) to accelerate disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) to qualified Nigerian shipowners.
According to the statement, NIMASA has so far received 92 applications under the CVFF framework, of which 20 have been forwarded to the PLIs and one has been reviewed and cleared for approval. Oyetola said the ship acquisition initiative could generate more than 30,000 direct and indirect jobs across shipyards, marine engineering firms and maritime logistics companies, while deepening Nigeria’s domestic ship-owning and shipbuilding base.
The Minister linked the disbursement push to President Bola Tinubu’s authorisation to unlock financing long owed to domestic maritime operators, framing it as central to realising the economic potential of Nigeria’s blue economy.
On manpower development, Oyetola disclosed that 222 seafarers had been trained free of charge in basic and advanced professional courses, while 333 cadets completed academic training and were awarded degrees. Under the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP), 135 cadets have completed the programme and obtained their Certificates of Competency (CoC).
He said the interventions reflect government’s commitment to strengthening indigenous maritime capacity so that Nigerians can benefit directly from opportunities created by the blue economy.
Nigeria Watch
The seafarer numbers are worth celebrating, but the more consequential line in Oyetola’s statement is the one about CVFF: 92 applications received, 20 forwarded to PLIs, and just one, only one is reviewed and cleared for approval. That ratio is the real story.
Waterways News has tracked the CVFF disbursement saga for years, and the pattern here is familiar: an announcement of “significant progress” that, on closer reading, describes a process still largely stuck at the application stage. Nigerian shipowners have waited over two decades for meaningful access to this fund, first established in 2003. A single approved application, even framed as forward momentum, does not yet amount to disbursement, and it is disbursement, not directives to NIMASA and the PLIs, that shipowners can take to the bank.
The seafarer placement and training figures are a genuine bright spot and speak to real capacity-building through NIMASA’s cadetship and NSDP schemes. But they sit somewhat apart from the CVFF question.
Training seafarers builds the workforce; it does not put Nigerian-owned vessels on the water for that workforce to crew. Until the CVFF pipeline moves from “20 applications forwarded” to actual funds reaching qualified shipowners, Nigeria’s ambition to grow an indigenous shipowning fleet — the same ambition the Minister invoked in citing 30,000 potential jobs — remains aspirational.
Waterways News will continue to press for concrete disbursement timelines and named beneficiaries under the CVFF, rather than accept process updates as a substitute for delivery.
Blue Economy
Navy, Fisheries Department Arrest 34 Suspects, Seize Three Vessels in Renewed War on Illegal Fishing
Navy, Fisheries Department Arrest 34 Suspects, Seize Three Vessels in Renewed War on Illegal Fishing
By Raymond Gold | Waterways News
The Federal Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Nigerian Navy have struck a fresh blow against illegal fishing in Nigerian waters, seizing three vessels and arresting 34 suspects in a coordinated three-day sweep.
The operation, codenamed Operation Abo Eja 2026, was designed to tighten surveillance and enforcement against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, one of the most persistent threats to Nigeria’s marine resources and the livelihoods that depend on them.
Among those arrested were 24 Nigerians, three Ghanaians and three Chinese nationals, underlining the increasingly foreign and cross-border character of the illegal trawling networks operating off the country’s coast.
The Western Naval Command led the offshore muscle of the operation, deploying a naval ship, a helicopter and Special Boat Service personnel, while the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture supplied technical and regulatory backing to ensure the arrests translate into prosecutable enforcement action.
Deputy Director at the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Adeleke Adegoke, said the operation underscored the need for sharper intelligence gathering and better information sharing between agencies to make future raids more targeted and effective.
Flag Officer Commanding the Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Abdullahi Mustapha, described the exercise as proof of effective inter-agency coordination, adding that it would strengthen ongoing efforts to safeguard Nigeria’s marine resources.
Nigeria Watch
Operation Abo Eja 2026 lands squarely inside a theme this desk has tracked for months: the steady erosion of Nigerian control over its own coastal waters. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is not a fringe nuisance — it is a direct assault on artisanal fishing communities and the small-scale operators who make up the bulk of Nigeria’s blue economy workforce, even as foreign trawlers, often flagged or crewed out of Asia, continue to test the limits of enforcement.
The presence of Chinese nationals among those arrested will not surprise close observers of Nigeria’s fisheries sector, where foreign-linked trawling operations have long been accused of over-exploiting stocks with little regard for licensing or seasonal restrictions. It also reinforces a broader pattern this publication has flagged repeatedly: foreign dominance of Nigerian coastal waters remains an unresolved policy failure, one that recurs regardless of which agency is nominally in charge.
The joint Navy-fisheries model deployed here — naval assets providing muscle, the fisheries department providing regulatory teeth — is also the same architecture underpinning the Deep Blue Project and broader Gulf of Guinea security efforts championed by the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy under Minister Adegboyega Oyetola. Deputy Director Adegoke’s call for better intelligence sharing is a familiar refrain in Nigerian maritime enforcement: the hardware and manpower for these operations increasingly exist, but the surveillance and prosecutorial follow-through that would deter repeat offenders has historically lagged.
For the informal and small-scale operators this desk covers closely, the real test will not be the headline arrest numbers but what happens next — whether the 34 suspects face meaningful prosecution, whether the three seized vessels are forfeited rather than quietly released, and whether Operation Abo Eja 2026 becomes a sustained enforcement posture rather than another one-off show of force.
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