Seas: Events Reported and What Satellites Show

Each page lists the events reported in one sea over the last 30 days, with how each was linked to it, and what radar and optical satellites can show there.

• Black Sea

  Lloyd’s List reported that security in the Black Sea deteriorated over summer 2026, reducing bulk exports from Ukraine and Russia; in August a tanker that had loaded at the CPC terminal was struck by suspected drones off Novorossiysk. At the sea’s southern exit, 19,277 vessels transited the Bosphorus in the first half of 2026.

• Red Sea

  The Red Sea runs from the Suez Canal to the Bab el-Mandeb, where Lloyd’s List counted September 2026 transits 47% below pre-Houthi-crisis levels (Suez: 39% below). Tension rose again in 2026: the Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports, and a containership was fired upon off Yemen on 7 October.

• Persian Gulf

  The Persian Gulf opens to the Gulf of Oman through the Strait of Hormuz, which EIA says carried about one-fifth of global LNG trade in 2024, mostly from Qatar. EIA’s October 2026 outlook assumes Middle East oil flows stay constrained through the end of 2026, with convoys through Hormuz and ship-to-ship transfers as workarounds.

• South China Sea

  China–Philippines coast-guard confrontations continued in 2026: in July Manila said a Chinese coast guard vessel fired a water cannon at a Philippine fisheries vessel at Scarborough Shoal, and in September it said Chinese ships obstructed a resupply mission to its Second Thomas Shoal outpost. CSIS’s AMTI counts 20 Chinese outposts in the Paracels and 7 in the Spratlys.

• Gulf of Oman

  The Gulf of Oman links the Strait of Hormuz to the Arabian Sea; on its coast, the Fujairah terminal receives a UAE crude pipeline that bypasses Hormuz. In September 2026 Saudi exports moved by ship-to-ship transfer near Oman and Fujairah, and in October 2021 Cyclone Shaheen crossed the gulf before a rare landfall in Oman.

• Sea of Azov

  The Sea of Azov is joined to the Black Sea by the Kerch Strait. On 10 July 2026, after Ukrainian drone strikes on tankers in the sea, Russia stopped accepting passage requests for the strait and halted Don-Azov Channel shipping; analysts say up to a quarter of Russia’s wheat exports pass through the Sea of Azov.

• Arabian Sea

  Cyclones are a recurring Arabian Sea theme: Biparjoy, whose formation the International Charter attributes partly to warmer sea surface temperatures across the Arabian Sea, came ashore near Jakhau Port in Gujarat on 15 June 2023. Analysts also watch ports on its coast, from Duqm in Oman’s special economic zone to Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Navi Mumbai.

• Caribbean Sea

  Caribbean satellite work is mostly hurricane and coastal response: Hurricane Melissa formed over the central Caribbean in October 2025 and struck Jamaica as a Category 5 storm. The sea is also the Atlantic approach to the Panama Canal at Colón, and NASA reports record Sargassum amounts in the Caribbean in June 2026.

• English Channel

  Channel traffic runs east–west in a two-lane traffic separation scheme, crossed at the Strait of Dover by ferries; ESA’s 2019 Sentinel-1 composite notes over 400 vessels crossing there every day. The UK and France run the Channel VTS jointly from Dover and CROSS Gris Nez, with mandatory reporting for larger ships.

• Gulf of Mexico

  The Gulf of Mexico is the main US offshore oil and gas region — BOEM says it generates about 97% of US Outer Continental Shelf production — so analysts watch platforms, slicks and the ports behind them. NASA reports Sargassum in the Gulf reached a record in June 2026.

• Sea of Japan

  Naval movements through the Tsushima Strait, which Japan’s Joint Staff reports when Russian or Chinese ships pass, and North Korean missile launches from its east coast are the recurring security themes. The January 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake lifted the north coast by up to 4 meters.

• Mediterranean Sea

  The Mediterranean’s shipping enters at the Strait of Gibraltar, 13 km wide at its narrowest, and leaves for the Red Sea through the Suez Canal at Port Said. Storms matter too: in September 2023 Storm Daniel’s floods collapsed two dams on Wadi Derna in Libya.

• East China Sea

  Japan’s government states that China has made repeated incursions into Japan’s territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands, sharply more frequent since 2012. Japan’s Joint Staff also reports Russian and Chinese naval ships entering the sea, for example through the Tsushima Strait, while Shanghai’s ports at the Yangtze mouth carry heavy container traffic.

• Baltic Sea

  Seabed infrastructure is the Baltic’s recurring satellite question: the Nord Stream ruptures near Bornholm in September 2022 and the Estlink 2 power cable fault between Finland and Estonia on 25 December 2024. Port activity at Gdańsk, which reports a 57% share of the Polish maritime shipping market, adds a trade signal.

Straits and canals have their own pages, with a weekly check of ship traffic, listed on Transit Anomalies.