It’s bad enough when farmers’ grain runs into choppy seas because of credit problems.
It’s another when cargo vessels are being seized by pirates on the high seas and held for ransom, as happened to a supertanker filled with $100 million of Saudi oil recently.
So far, Canadian export grain shipments do not seem to have been halted by fears of sighting the Jolly Roger.
“At the moment, nobody is not doing business because of piracy,” said Adrian Man, the assistant vice-president for Asia Pacific at Richardson International Ltd. and a exporter representative on the board of the Canola Council of Canada.
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“Myself and my competitors have not had an issue, but piracy has always been a concern.”
As long as ships have plied the world’s seas and oceans with trading goods, there have been pirates. For most of history, ship owners often armed ships or travelled in convoys with armed escorts or else risked seizure, and ransom or death.
The main problem now is in the Gulf of Aden, where Somali pirates have become increasingly bold in seizing ships, including the oil tanker. The pirates are lurking at a crucial chokepoint for world trade, where the traffic that travels through the Suez Canal empties out into the Indian Ocean for destinations in the Persian Gulf, India, east Asia and the eastern coast of Africa.
But many more vessels have been seized in recent years in the Indian Ocean, including reports of a ship full of grain en route to Iran being captured.
Today’s Somali pirates are a motley crew of professional pirates, entrepreneurial militiamen short on money and work, and local fishermen looking to make a buck, according to experts.
More than a dozen of the world’s most effective navies, including the British, American and Indian, have ships on station near the Horn of Africa and in the Indian Ocean.
On Nov. 19, the Indian frigate Tabar destroyed a ship it claimed was a pirate vessel.
But so many merchant ships travel through the area that it has been impossible to keep the area free from pirates.
While the navies have not been able to eliminate the problem, in a sense it is one of the more positive aspects of the situation: the chance of any one vessel being seized by pirates is low.
“There are many more vessels that have gone through no problem. We only hear about the problems (in the media),” said Man.
The heightened danger of piracy in recent years has added costs to the world grain trade, however.
“The owner of the vessel has borne more risk on this,” said Man.
“The buyer, also, is covering the insurance.”
