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An oil tanker being serviced by a bunkering vessel.

Courtesy: Hafnia

If you think that life at sea is like the movie franchise “Pirates of the Caribbean,” think again.

The movies, which feature ambushes, looting and a drunken captain, are far from real life, according to shipping veteran Ralph Juhl.

“That is, of course, a lot of bollocks,” Juhl told CNBC by phone.

For starters, the consumption of alcohol is banned on many ships.

But there is one similarity with the movie, Juhl said: the code of conduct between seafarers. In the franchise, the Pirate’s Code was chronicled in a book kept by character Captain Teague, and loosely followed by some.

For those who sail for a living, there is a similar type of agreement, Juhl said.

The crew on board an oil tanker operated by Hafnia.

Courtesy: Hafnia

“Seafarers, no matter where they come from — India, Ukraine, Denmark, the Philippines — there is this conduct of how you behave on a ship … You can actually endanger both yourself and all of your colleagues if you are not playing that social game, being on board the ship. So, you take responsibility, you follow authority,” Juhl said.

Juhl, an executive vice-president at oil tanker firm Hafnia, has worked in the industry for several decades, starting as an ordinary seaman — the lowest rank of sailor — in 1983.

“When you as a seafarer [go] on board … you are a contribution to the society and you have to fit in … there is this code of the high seas,” he added.

A captain’s life

“Pirates of the Caribbean” is a seafaring stereotype familiar to Hafnia’s DSA Dixon, who has been a captain for five years. Dixon — who sails vessels known as product tankers, which transport both refined and unrefined petroleum products around the world — had to convince his parents-in-law that his role was nothing like the movie, he told CNBC by phone.

“A lot of people have a very different representation of a seafarer, looking at Pirates of the Caribbean,” he said.

Captain DSA Dixon (in black) says he invents games to keep his crew’s morale up during months at sea.

DSA Dixon | Hafnia

Dixon might be captaining a ship such as the huge Hafnia Rhine, which is about 230 meters long by 33 meters wide, with a capacity of more than 76,000 deadweight tons — a measure that includes the oil cargo, plus fuel, food, water and crew members, but not the weight of the ship itself.

Where the ship goes depends on where the demand for oil is and Dixon has sailed to every continent bar Antarctica, he said.

Dixon aims to keep to a schedule of three months at sea followed by three months at home in Mumbai, India, he said, and he started his most recent voyage on the Mississippi River in the U.S., sailing to Brazil and going on to Saudi Arabia via Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, before returning to Brazil.

The greatest part of my job is I’ve seen things that an average human being might not.

DSA Dixon

Captain, Hafnia

Compared to someone working an office job, Dixon said he spends more time with his wife and six-year-old son, as when he is at home he’s “completely” there. “I love this part of my life, because when I go back home, I’m Santa Claus,” he said. “It doesn’t get stagnated at any point – when it’s about to get stagnated, I’m back at sea.”

High days and holidays

Aside from navigation, Dixon said the most important part of his job is to keep the crew in good spirits, as they spend months at sea together.

“We have at times, 20, 25 people on board, they’re all different nationalities, different cultures, different languages … our ship is as good as the people on it,” Dixon said.

There’s no fixed daily routine, Dixon added. “There’s no one way to describe life on board. It’s challenging of course, but the challenge keeps you motivated all the time,” he said.

Along with navigation and managing the crew, Dixon might be talking to officials who come aboard when the ship is docked or coming up with ways to celebrate religious festivals.

The engine control room of an oil tanker. Hafnia Chief Engineer Dmytro Lifarenko spent around six months on board during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Courtesy: Hafnia

“Irrespective of nationality, or religion, people celebrate each other’s events or festivals,” Dixon said. “I even invent something like a treasure hunt on board. The ship is massive, I divide [crew] into teams … and let them find their own way,” Dixon added.

These games might sound “kiddish,” but they serve an important purpose, Dixon said. “These are grown-up men, some might be 50 years-old, and they’re doing this, but it’s the way to bond … we need to socialize and a happy ship is always an excellent vessel,” Dixon said.

Dixon makes sure the crew take Sundays off, spending it as they choose: perhaps playing PlayStation, chatting or sleeping. “I make sure there’s an excellent lunch,” Dixon added.

Traveling across oceans means getting to experience some of the world’s natural spectacles, with Dixon seeing the light phenomenon aurora borealis — also known as the northern lights — while sailing near Norway.

An aurora borealis light display in the southern part of Norway, one of the natural spectacles seen by oil tanker captain DSA Dixon during his seafaring life.

Heiko Junge | Afp | Getty Images

“The only regret I have is what I see I’m not able to share it, I want my family to see [things] at that very point, at that very moment, a photograph won’t capture it,” Dixon said. How did he feel seeing the lights? “You feel complete, I will say. You feel abundant,” he said.

“The greatest part of my job is I’ve seen things that an average human being might not,” he added.

Rough waters

Alongside enjoying scenes of wonder, life as a seafarer can be tough.

Hafnia Chief Engineer Dmytro Lifarenko is from Ukraine and was at home when Russia invaded the country in February 2022, fleeing with his wife and children across Europe to Valencia in Spain.

“I don’t know how I would handle … knowing that the bombs were there and I’m on board,” he told CNBC by phone, speculating about how he would have felt if he had been at sea when war broke out.

While his most recent voyage was five months long — sailing from Singapore to France and then Australia — he has recently taken extended leave to settle his family in their new home.

Chief Engineer Dmytro Lifarenko is from Ukraine and was at home when Russia invaded the country in February 2022. He has since moved with his family to Spain.

Dmytro Lifarenko | Hafnia

“I miss my family a lot during the voyage,” Lifarenko said — he and his wife have three children: a daughter of six months, six-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter.

“Being two parents for three kids, this is fine. Being [effectively] a single mom for our kids, that’s very difficult … to be honest, this is the worst part of the job.”

This is something Juhl is sympathetic to: “That’s a big ‘uncomfort’ for many seafarers, that they are now so involved in their family [while at sea], even though they can’t do anything about it,” he said.

The boiler suit dressed man with a big spanner — it’s not the sailor that we’ll need in the future.

Ralph Juhl

Executive vice president, Hafnia

During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Lifarenko spent about six months onboard, which is longer than his usual voyage. He said guided meditations sent to him by Hafnia were useful to deal with an uncertain situation.

“You keep thinking about the things that you actually cannot change, and that’s quite close to depression, but this [was] like a helpful hand,” he said.

But, despite some downsides, Lifarenko said he loves his job because of its variety. “You cannot say what is your routine, because the routine part is quite small. Most of the time, you are solving some situation, which requires you to use your brain, and you’re thinking, how to fix this … or how can we maintain this in a better way,” he said.

He has also enjoyed seeing the natural world while onboard, including spotting whales and sailing close to the volcanic Canary Islands.

Future sailors

Juhl spent more than a decade as a seafarer, starting at age 16 and sailing to places such as Honduras and South Korea, and becoming a navigator on chemical carrier ships before captaining ferries. He came onshore in 1997 and is now responsible for Hafnia’s technical operations. He described those onboard as “working their butts off.”

“They never go ashore anymore, there are terminals far away from cities and so on. So, this romantic life and impression of seafarers, it is pretty much gone. It’s hard work,” he said.

Oil tanker crew prepare mooring ropes to secure a bunker barge to their vessel for refueling.

Courtesy: Hafnia

This means attracting the next generation of crew is potentially tougher. “It’s a lonely life from time to time. And today you cannot offer young people loneliness,” he said.

Juhl wants to encourage more women to become seafarers and Hafnia is working on a pilot program to operate two ships where half the crew are female, to understand how the culture onboard might change, both positively and negatively, and how to solve that.

However, issues remain: Authorities in countries where women are discriminated against might not deal with female captains, for example, so Hafnia has had to temporarily assign a male captain for port stays in such places, Juhl said.

There has been internet access on board tankers for just a couple of years, Juhl added, and he wants to get creative about what might be possible as technology involves. 

He’s especially keen for sailors to be able to communicate with their families at home, he said.

“Hopefully we can soon make holograms where the captain can go to his cabin with his supper, and then he can open his hologram and he can sit and eat with his wife … we have to think that way,” Juhl said. And new technology will mean seafarers need different skills. “The boiler suit dressed man with a big spanner — it’s not the sailor that we’ll need in the future,” he said.

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BMW ups the ante with the fastest, most powerful electric maxi-scooter

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10 hours ago

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July 5, 2025

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BMW ups the ante with the fastest, most powerful electric maxi-scooter

BMW Motorrad’s futuristic electric scooter just got its first real refresh since beginning production in 2021. The BMW CE 04, already one of the most capable and stylish electric maxi-scooters on the market, now gets a set of upgraded trim options, new aesthetic touches, and a more robust list of features that aim to make this urban commuter even more appealing to riders looking for serious electric performance on two wheels.

The BMW CE 04 has always stood out for its sci-fi styling and high-performance drivetrain. It’s built on a mid-mounted liquid-cooled motor that puts out 31 kW (42 hp) and 62 Nm of torque. That’s enough to rocket the scooter from 0 to 50 km/h (31 mph) in just 2.6 seconds – quite fast for anything with a step-through frame.

The top speed is electronically limited to 120 km/h (75 mph), making it perfectly capable for city riding and fast enough to hold its own on highway stretches. Range is rated at 130 km (81 miles) on the WMTC cycle, thanks to the 8.9 kWh battery pack tucked low in the frame.

But while the core performance hasn’t changed, BMW’s 2025 update focuses on refining the package and giving riders more options to tailor the scooter to their taste. The new CE 04 is available in three trims: Basic, Avantgarde, and Exclusive.

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The Basic trim keeps things clean and classic with a Lightwhite paint scheme and a clear windshield. It’s subtle, sleek, and very much in line with the CE 04’s clean-lined aesthetic. The Avantgarde model adds a splash of color with a Gravity Blue main body and bright São Paulo Yellow accents, along with a dark windshield and a laser-engraved rim. The top-shelf Exclusive trim is where things get fancy, with a premium Spacesilver metallic paint job, upgraded wind protection, heated grips, a luxury embroidered seat, and its own unique engraved rim treatment.

There are also a few new tech upgrades baked into the options list. Riders can now spec a 6.9 kW quick charger that reduces the 0–80% charge time to just 45 minutes (down from nearly 4 hours with the standard 2.3 kW onboard charger). Tire pressure monitoring, a center stand, and BMW’s “Headlight Pro” adaptive lighting system are also available as add-ons, along with an emergency eCall system and Dynamic Traction Control.

BMW has kept the core riding components in place: a steel-tube chassis, 15-inch wheels, Bosch ABS (with optional ABS Pro), and the impressive 10.25” TFT display with integrated navigation and smartphone connectivity. The under-seat storage still swallows a full-face helmet, and the long, low frame design means the scooter looks like something out of Blade Runner but rides like a luxury commuter.

With these updates, BMW seems to be further cementing the CE 04’s role at the high end of the electric scooter market. It’s not cheap, starting around €12,000 in Europe and around US $12,500 in the US, with prices going up from there depending on configuration. However, the maxi-scooter delivers real motorcycle-grade performance in a package that’s easier to live with for daily riders.

Electrek’s Take

I believe that the CE 04’s biggest strength has always been that it’s not trying to be a toy or a gimmick. It’s a real vehicle. Sure, it’s futuristic and funky looking, but it delivers on its promises. And in a market that’s still surprisingly sparse when it comes to premium electric scooters, BMW has had the lane mostly to itself. That may not last forever, though. LiveWire, Harley-Davidson’s electric spin-off brand, has teased plans for a maxi-scooter-style urban electric vehicle in the coming years, but as of now, it remains something of an undefined future plan.

Meanwhile, BMW is delivering not just a concept bike but a mature, well-equipped, and ready-to-ride electric scooter that keeps improving. For riders who want something faster and more capable than a Class 3 e-bike but aren’t ready to jump to a full-size electric motorcycle, the CE 04 hits a sweet spot. It delivers the performance and capability of a commuter e-motorcycle, yet with the approachability of a scooter. And with these new trims and upgrades, it’s doing it with even more style.

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I found this cheap Chinese e-cargo trike that hauls more than your car!

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14 hours ago

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July 5, 2025

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I found this cheap Chinese e-cargo trike that hauls more than your car!

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.

Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!

I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!

Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.

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To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.

Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!

Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.

The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.

The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!

I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.

That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.

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OPEC+ members agree to larger-than-expected oil production hike in August

Published

15 hours ago

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July 5, 2025

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OPEC+ members agree to larger-than-expected oil production hike in August

The OPEC logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of a computer screen displaying OPEC icons in Ankara, Turkey, on June 25, 2024.

Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

Eight oil-producing nations of the OPEC+ alliance agreed on Saturday to increase their collective crude production by 548,000 barrels per day, as they continue to unwind a set of voluntary supply cuts.

This subset of the alliance — comprising heavyweight producers Russia and Saudi Arabia, alongside Algeria, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — met digitally earlier in the day. They had been expected to increase their output by a smaller 411,000 barrels per day.

In a statement, the OPEC Secretariat attributed the countries’ decision to raise August daily output by 548,000 barrels to “a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories.”

The eight producers have been implementing two sets of voluntary production cuts outside of the broader OPEC+ coalition’s formal policy.

One, totaling 1.66 million barrels per day, stays in effect until the end of next year.

Under the second strategy, the countries reduced their production by an additional 2.2 million barrels per day until the end of the first quarter.

They initially set out to boost their production by 137,000 barrels per day every month until September 2026, but only sustained that pace in April. The group then tripled the hike to 411,000 barrels per day in each of May, June, and July — and is further accelerating the pace of their increases in August.

Oil prices were briefly boosted in recent weeks by the seasonal summer spike in demand and the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, which threatened both Tehran’s supplies and raised concerns over potential disruptions of supplies transported through the key Strait of Hormuz.

At the end of the Friday session, oil futures settled at $68.30 per barrel for the September-expiration Ice Brent contract and at $66.50 per barrel for front month-August Nymex U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude.

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