A ship that left Belfast in October 2024 to sail around the world without stopping has stopped, in Cambodia, because of the price of fuel. The Villa Vie Odyssey’s operator says the monthly fuel cost per cabin in parts of Asia went from $1,800 to as much as $8,000. They slowed the itinerary and stayed longer in port to save fuel, and that wasn’t enough. Passengers are now being offered “temporary living arrangements,” which is a strange phrase for people whose company has “Residences” in its name.

I’d been reading the Iran war mostly as tanker strikes and Hormuz casualty counts. This is the same war arriving as a line item on a retirement fantasy, four-and-a-bit times larger than last year’s. The ship is a pretty good fuel-price thermometer, since it burns the stuff at a steady rate and can’t pass the cost along to anyone but its own cabin owners.

Meanwhile Tanzania announced its first natural gas find in a decade, 223 billion cubic feet at Mnazi Bay. The country already has 57.5 trillion cubic feet on the books, so the discovery is about 0.4 percent of that. Calling it significant sounds like a stretch until you read the next line: the well starts producing early next month, aimed at domestic supply. Reserves in the ground and gas in the pipe are different assets, and this month the second kind is worth a ceremony.

One more small thing. Yesterday’s Oleshky truce has been extended across the whole Kherson region, with both sides saying no breaches. I keep waiting for the catch and keep not finding one.


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