Storage, Transport & Export

5000 BC

Mesopotamia invented the wheel, enabling carts and carriages

Early civilisations moved goods on domesticated animals such as horses, camels and donkeys. The wheel allowed animal-drawn carts and carriages, sharply raising the volume of freight that could be moved overland and forming the basis of all later land haulage.

1819 · 207 years ago

Stamford Raffles founded a British trading post at Singapore

The settlement's position at the narrowest point of the strait connecting the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea gave Britain control of one of the world's most important shipping chokepoints, a role Singapore continues to play in global bulk and container trade today.

1869 · 157 years ago

The Suez Canal opened, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas

Built under French direction with Egyptian labour, the canal removed the need to sail around Africa to move goods between Europe and Asia, and became from the start a route whose control great powers considered a vital strategic interest.

1869 · 157 years ago

The First Transcontinental Railroad connected the eastern United States to the Pacific coast

Completion of the line at Promontory Summit let grain, timber, minerals and other bulk goods move across the continent in days rather than months, opening the American West's resources to eastern and export markets and setting a template for resource-driven railway building worldwide.

1878 · 148 years ago

The Zoroaster became the first successful purpose-built oil tanker

Built for the Nobel brothers' Baku oil business to carry crude across the Caspian Sea, the ship replaced barrels and wooden boats with a hull built specifically to hold bulk liquid cargo, a design that became the template for the modern tanker.

1907 · 119 years ago

The Baku–Batumi pipeline began carrying oil across the Caucasus to the Black Sea

One of the longest pipelines built up to that time moved oil from the Baku fields to a Black Sea export terminal, cutting reliance on rail tank cars and establishing a transport pattern that later Soviet and post-Soviet pipelines followed.

1914 · 112 years ago

The Panama Canal opened, joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

Completed by the United States after a French effort had failed decades earlier, the canal cut weeks off bulk shipping routes between the two oceans and became, alongside Suez, one of the two chokepoints that most shape the geography of world trade.

1916 · 110 years ago

Russia completed the Trans-Siberian Railway

The line, built over more than two decades, linked European Russia to the Pacific and opened Siberia's timber, minerals and other resources to large-scale extraction and export, binding a vast and thinly populated territory into a single economic and strategic space.

1956 · 70 years ago

Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal

President Gamal Abdel Nasser's move to take the canal from its British and French shareholders triggered an invasion by Britain, France and Israel, a crisis that ended with the canal remaining Egyptian and marked a turning point in Western control over strategic trade chokepoints.

1965 onward · 61 years ago

Purpose-built bulk ore carriers opened up large-scale seaborne trade in iron ore

New, much larger dry bulk ships let Australian iron ore reach Japanese steel mills economically, founding a trade pattern later extended to South Korea and, from the 2000s, China, which became by far the largest buyer of seaborne iron ore.

1967 · 59 years ago

The Six-Day War closed the Suez Canal for eight years

With the canal blocked and unusable, shipowners responded by building much larger tankers, the very large and ultra-large crude carriers that could move oil economically around the Cape of Good Hope, permanently changing the scale of the world tanker fleet.

Early 2026 · 6 months ago

Western governments added more tankers from Russia's shadow fleet to sanctions lists

The United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom sanctioned further ageing, opaquely owned tankers used to move Russian oil above the Western price cap, after several such vessels were linked to dragged anchors that damaged undersea power and data cables in the Baltic Sea.

2026 to date · this year

Houthi forces in Yemen kept up intermittent attacks on shipping in the Red Sea

Missile and drone strikes on commercial vessels, though reduced from their 2024 peak, continued to push much container, tanker and bulk carrier traffic around the Cape of Good Hope rather than through the Suez Canal, adding time and cost to voyages between Asia and Europe.

• Insurance costs stayed elevated for vessels transiting the Bab-el-Mandeb strait

2025 · last year

Bulk and tanker shipowners ordered a growing number of LNG and methanol dual-fuel vessels

New environmental rules from the International Maritime Organization pushed owners of the ships that carry the world's iron ore, coal, grain and oil to order cleaner-burning newbuilds, even though most of the existing bulk fleet still runs on conventional fuel oil.

Early 2025 · last year

The Panama Canal Authority lifted most of the draft and transit restrictions imposed during the prior year's drought

Heavier rains refilled the reservoirs that feed the canal's locks, allowing a return to near-normal numbers of daily transits after a dry spell had forced ships, including many carrying grain and other bulk cargo, to wait weeks or take longer routes.

Early 2024 · 2 years ago

The Suez Canal Authority cut transit tolls to try to win shipping traffic back

Egypt offered discounts, particularly for container and some bulk vessels, after Red Sea attacks diverted a large share of traffic around Africa and cut deeply into the canal revenue that is one of the country's main sources of foreign currency.

Early 2024 · 2 years ago

Russia and China failed to finalise terms for the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline

Talks over a proposed pipeline that would carry Russian gas through Mongolia to China continued without a signed agreement, with the two sides reportedly still disagreeing over the price Beijing would pay, even as Russia sought new outlets for gas it could no longer sell to Europe.

• Mongolia stood to earn transit fees if the project proceeds

Mid-2024 · 2 years ago

QatarEnergy signed further shipbuilding contracts for new LNG carriers

Orders placed with South Korean and Chinese shipyards added to an already huge programme of newbuild LNG carriers needed to move gas from the expanding North Field project to customers in Asia and Europe once new production trains come online.

Mid-2024 · 2 years ago

The East African Crude Oil Pipeline continued construction despite Western financiers withdrawing

The heated pipeline, intended to carry Ugandan crude 1,443 kilometres to a Tanzanian export terminal, kept being built with Chinese, Ugandan and other financing after several European banks and insurers pulled out over environmental and human rights objections.

Late 2024 · 2 years ago

China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan began construction of a long-delayed rail link between them

Work started on a route through mountainous terrain that would give China a rail corridor to Central Asia and onward to Europe and the Middle East without transiting Russia or Kazakhstan, a project discussed for nearly three decades before financing and terms were finally agreed.

Late 2024 · 2 years ago

The United States and partner governments pushed ahead with the Lobito Corridor rail link

Rehabilitated and new rail lines connecting the copper and cobalt belt of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Angola's Atlantic port of Lobito advanced further, positioning the route as an alternative to congested southern African lines and to Chinese-linked export corridors.

• President Biden visited Angola to highlight the project