Maritime Risk Assessment for Portugal, Sweden and the Baltic Sea with an emphasis on shadow fleets

17 April 2025 Sabine Knapp & Erasmus University

While safety qualities of vessels in the maritime industry have improved over time, recent geopolitical developments and tensions influence maritime trade flows and the associated risk exposure of the global fleet. This comprehensive study quantifies risk exposure in the Portuguese EEZ, the Swedish EEZ and the Baltic Area with an emphasis on pollution risk exposure from tankers and the emerging shadow fleet. Risk exposure is expressed as the monetary value at risk (MVR), a proxy of potential incident costs calculated at ship level. We construct a shadow fleet watchlist comprising of designated vessels and supplemented by additions based on a prediction model.

We construct a shadow fleet watchlist comprising of designated vessels and supplemented by additions based on a prediction model. The study is based on comprehensive datasets using global ship particular data, incident data and global AIS data. The resulting analysis is based on over 45.2 million estimates of 146,103 unique ships from January 2021 to December 2024.

Risk exposure is highly seasonal for cruise and passenger ships that are an important risk exposure component for the Portuguese EEZ and the Baltic Area besides tankers. At the global level, pollution risk exposure increased by 3% for tankers and 3.7% for oil tankers from 2023 to 2024 while in the areas of interest, the increase is estimated to be higher (over 40% for the Baltic Region, over 100% for the Gulf of Finland and over 20% for the Portuguese EEZ). Vessels on designated lists account for 7.4% of global pollution risk compared to 32% for the Gulf of Finland or 54% if the total shadow fleet is considered. We project a monthly increase of pollution risk exposure for tankers of 2.7% for the Gulf of Finland up to December 2027.

At the regional level and as at December 2024, risk exposure (MVR-TLVSS) is estimated to be USD 542 million for Portugal, USD 216 million for Sweden and USD 841 for the Total Baltic Area. A large portion of this is allocated to the Gulf of Finland (20%) albeit its small area.

The largest average yearly increase is for the Portuguese Continent with 26%. The percentage to global total is highest with the Total Baltic Area at 1.9%.

Results showed an increase of total global nautical miles travelled from the active fleet from 2.4 billion to 2.7 billion or an average increase of 3% from 2022 to 2024. Overall, risk exposure has increased at the global level by an average yearly increase of 5.4% from 2022 to 2024 (monthly 2.3%) while higher increases can be seen for individual regions.

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