Briefly Noted: Baltimore Harbor And Putin

Recommended reading for those who are interested:

How Baltimore bridge disaster threatens to leave key global shipping markets ‘frozen in time’

A container ship downed Francis Scott Key Bridge, but the impact will be felt way beyond the liner market

This will be a big supply chain snafu. Excerpts from a long and detailed article:

Major shipping markets are braced for impact following the collapse of an iconic bridge in Baltimore after it was struck by a Maersk-chartered container ship in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

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Bulk carriers are apparently trapped inside the port and others are rerouting away in the aftermath of the incident.

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This year to date, Baltimore has been the largest US coal export port in terms of vessel loadings and the 22nd-largest exporter globally. The nearby hub of Hampton Roads — which comprises the ports Newport News, Virginia and Norfolk — is bigger.

Coal is loaded in Chesapeake Bay at the CNX and CSX terminals at Curtis Bay Piers, owned by transportation group CSX Corp.

The two terminals primarily handle coal from the northern Appalachia region and sometimes US coal from further afield, including central and southern Appalachia, and the Illinois, Colorado River and Powder River basins.

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The coal trade from Baltimore will be “probably frozen in time” for weeks, according to Anton Posner, CEO of Mercury Resources, which manages dry cargo supply chains in North America for producers, consumers, commodity trading companies and banks.

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Baltimore is also a major import hub for steel, zinc, lead and especially aluminium, which is mainly the preserve of handysize bulkers.

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Container shipments to the US East Coast face months of disruption following the disaster.

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Baltimore is one of the US’ most important ports for automobile and heavy machinery trades. The Maryland Port Administration claims it handles more ro-ro cargoes than any other port in the country.

Will Schryver recommended this article about Putin by a US diplomat who knew Putin personally during Putin’s St. Petersburg days, before Putin’s rise to the top. The article dates back to September, 2019.

The Key to Understanding Vladimir Putin

It is common to ascribe America’s growing difficulties with Russia to President Vladimir Putin personally, but the sources of Russian discontent predate Putin’s presidency.

Let me put it right out there: I believe we Americans have misunderstood -- or, as George Bush might have said, “misunderestimated” -- Vladimir Putin from the moment he entered our consciousness, at the very start of the present millennium. Here is how I remember him and what I think of where we are today.

Putin was my guest at a July 4th reception in St. Petersburg in 1995, when I was serving as the U.S. Consul General there. I recall taking him into my library. We spoke Russian in those days, before he began to learn English. His wife, still recovering from a bad automobile accident, did not accompany him. On that occasion, he was representing his boss, Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who was off on a trip. Of course, I hadn’t the faintest idea that this man was destined to become the President of the Russian Federation--and neither did he.

It seems hundreds of books have been written about Putin, and thousands of articles. More are coming, and each of them will attempt to shed some additional light on this remarkable man, who has risen from humble beginnings to lead one of the world’s great nations, and has now, at the relatively young age of 66, broken the (post-Stalin) record set by Leonid Brezhnev for doing so. If I had had any idea in the mid-nineties that my guest would one day become Russia’s leader, I would have had him over to lunch, to say the least. But I didn’t, and I am just as glad, because it would have altered the dynamic. We were simply colleagues then.

And lots more.