The one that controls the world’s maritime transport flows controls the world. For hundreds of years this phrase has guided Columbus, the East India Company as well as Donald Trump.
Almost every day we read about the tariffs imposed by Trump, the Russian shadow fleet, or the crises in the Strait of Hormuz, all of which are about fighting for control of the world’s maritime transport.
Over the past 50 years, the maritime transport of crude oil and oil products has been particularly important. In 1980, more than half of the world’s maritime transport was oil and gas. At the same time, OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, had been given significant power in the world. In the 1970s during the oil crisis, we learned the first lesson about this power and the disadvantages of oil dependence – at the end of 1973, crude oil cost five times more than in September of the same year. In Finland, too, oil consumption was limited, and, among other things, indoor temperatures were lowered to below 20 degrees.
However, the situation is changing. Today, oil accounts for only 16 percent of global maritime transport. The latest Review of Maritime Transport, the essential work of every maritime economist, was published a few weeks ago. It shows that although the global economy has roughly doubled since 2010, oil transport has remained in the same level at around two billion tons since 2010. Even refined oil transport has not increased since 2019, even though the world has already recovered from the pandemic.
World energy transport by sea. Source: UNCTAD: Review of Maritime Transport, 2025.
More and more countries are trying to reduce their dependence on oil from the Middle East, Russia or other major oil-producing countries. The most significant country to break away from dependence on imported oil transport has been the United States, whose own oil production has increased significantly in this millennium, already exceeding consumption.
Countries are looking for alternatives to oil
Of particular interest are countries that have been making a determined effort to move away not only from oil import, but also from oil consumption for decades.
The first example that comes to mind is China, whose economic growth has been very rapid in recent decades, and thus oil consumption has also increased. Currently, however, oil imports have stabilized, and for example, transport is being electrified at a rapid pace.
Another interesting example is the major oil producing country Norway, which produces oil far more than its own needs. However, the country has managed to keep its own oil consumption unchanged, and the growing energy needs are covered by hydropower.
Even stricter solutions are seen in developing countries, some of which are striving to completely break free from oil dependence. For example, several African countries, such as Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya, have significantly increased their solar energy production – using solar energy instead of oil is often also cheaper. Similarly, in Asia, for example in Nepal, 76 percent of new cars are electric.
IMO postpones agreement on emission reductions
In mid-October, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) postponed a global agreement on emission reduction measures by a year. The decision was even supported by aggressive lobbying by major oil-producing countries, such as the United States and Russia.
It is an irony that Putin’s decades-long attempt to tie the rest of the world to Russian oil and gas, and Trump’s aggressive opposition to the green transition, are pushing the world in the opposite direction – to develop and use oil-independent forms of energy, and thus to break away from dependence on these countries.
The fight against climate change is rewarded when geopolitical and security of supply considerations move the world away from fossil fuels.
The article was previously published in Finnish in Navigator Magazine, an online magazine for maritime professionals, on October 27, 2025.
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