Alkagesta chief urges shipping to treat record freight costs as a solvable problem
Writing for The Motorship, Alkagesta chief executive Orkhan Rustamov argues that owners and traders must build agility, diversification and contingency planning into supply chains rather than accept record transport costs as permanent.
Shipping companies and commodity traders cannot treat record transport costs as an immovable fact of life, according to Orkhan Rustamov, chief executive of the Malta-based commodity trading house Alkagesta, in an exclusive opinion article published by The Motorship.
Rustamov points to price benchmarks tracked by Argus since 2005 that have recently broken records: fees of up to US$2.5m to transit both sets of Panama Canal locks, Black Sea tanker freight rates and Gulf-to-Far East crude voyages all reaching new highs, while drought on the Rhine has pushed Trans-Rhine barge costs to their steepest level in 14 years. The Alkagesta chief executive argues the industry itself now carries a responsibility to limit the longer-term damage of that trend.
Blaming events alone would be a mistake, he writes. Instability around the Hormuz route and the sharper effects of a worsening climate are not going away, and treating them as a fait accompli would leave the sector exposed. Persistently rising prices, in his view, invite intervention from governments and international bodies and erode the industry's reputation as custodian of essential resources — a risk management question as much as a commercial one.
The remedy Rustamov proposes starts with agility. Shipping companies should work far more closely with traders to build a physical trading strategy that can adapt quickly to sudden events, rather than treating vessels, route choice and freight as separate line items in a narrowly framed procurement exercise.
Diversity of supply sources, transport modes and route options should be a basic requirement rather than a nice-to-have, he argues, and that is where trader partnerships pay off: traders carry the network, the global reach and the daily habit of moving at speed when volatility hits. That combination of trading and shipping and logistics capability is central to how integrated traders now pitch themselves to owners and charterers.
Scenario planning is the second pillar. Assumptions can safely be made about very few parts of the chain, and refineries, ports and terminals can be disrupted at short notice, as 2026 has repeatedly shown. Operators should already have answers to what happens if a refinery or berth is unavailable for a month, and whether road or pipeline alternatives can carry the volume. The alternative does not need to be perfect or cheapest, Rustamov writes — it only needs to be viable, an approach that also shapes how trade finance and physical cover are arranged around contingency cargoes.
His sharpest criticism is reserved for the industry's fixation on the live price. Reacting to today's and tomorrow's screen levels will not put owners or traders in a durable position, he argues, and 2026 — like 2022 — should serve as a prompt to invest time, money and people in the wider supply-chain picture. Alkagesta's own trading operations span biofuels, crude, naphtha, fertilizers and jet fuel from hubs including Malta, Singapore, Turkey and Romania.
More than half a year into the Hormuz disruption, Rustamov concludes, there has been ample time for boardrooms to start building resilient, diversified supply networks and contingency plans — and failure to do so would threaten the sector's standing as custodian of the resources that power the global economy. The full opinion piece is published by The Motorship; further company commentary appears in Alkagesta's leadership and governance material and its media updates.
