Shipping groups seek counter-drone protection after wave of attacks

Merchant shipping companies are racing to bolster their fleets’ defences against drones after a wave of attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea and Middle East.

Counter-drone specialists including Marss, Drone Defence and D-fend said they had received a surge of inquiries from shipowners, with interest particularly strong among companies that handle oil and gas cargoes and those working around offshore energy infrastructure.

Commercial ships are increasingly being targeted in the Gulf and the Black Sea as parties in conflicts seek to disrupt critical commodity supply chains, while shipowners willing to operate in dangerous waters are commanding record freight rates for their vessels.

D-fend Solutions’ chief marketing officer Jeffrey Starr told the FT the business, which was founded by Israeli cyber experts and specialises in taking over the controls of hostile drones before safely landing them, had seen “huge demand” from the shipping sector.

“What we are finding is that shipowners, shippers and naval forces are facing an asymmetric threat that is causing a big inbound uptick in enquiries about our technology,” he said. “This drone threat is no longer just limited to high-intensity war zones.”

Rival Drone Defence has had a rise in inquiries from oil tanker and liquefied natural gas carriers, according to chief executive Richard Gill, who said that if shipowners could protect their vessels “they can do the more risky routes”.

John Stawpert, marine director at the International Chamber of Shipping, said the threat to the industry from drones had grown over recent years, “both from surface and aerial assets, and this has been especially the case in areas of active conflict such as the Gulf, Red Sea and Black Sea”.

More than 20 seafarers have been killed by drone and missile strikes in the Gulf since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran at the end of February, while roughly 30 have been killed in the Black Sea this year, according to the International Maritime Organization.

The cost of chartering a supertanker to pass through the Strait of Hormuz hit an all-time high last week of $1.2mn a day for voyages towards China against an average of about $79,000 a day in September last year.

Offshore energy infrastructure, including pipelines, cables and wind farms, has also become a target. European security officials have reported drone surveillance and, in some cases, clandestine attacks, while Nato countries have increasingly raised concerns about Russian interference in European waters.

Until recently demand for anti-drone technology at sea came primarily from superyacht owners seeking to protect themselves from paparazzi, according to several counter-drone specialists.

“Superyachts was one of the areas where it all began . . . and a significant number of the top yachts are protected by Nidar,” a system created by Marss, said chief growth officer Rob Balloch.

The company was now seeing a “step change up” for vessels that serve offshore oil and gas because “the technology and software to integrate it has reached a price point where the costs from lost days caused by such threats justifies the investment”.

Nidar systems work by using onboard surveillance technology such as radar and cameras to detect incoming threats. More advanced systems can include kinetic responses depending on the laws of the region in which the ship is operating.

Drones can also be disrupted by jamming GPS signals or interrupting their control frequencies.

Gill said a radar-based system with cameras and a jamming system would cost about $500,000 for an oil tanker. Ships that cannot afford such technology have resorted to more rudimentary drone defence such as nets and suspended water tanks to entangle drones or cause them to explode before reaching critical parts of the ship.

A key challenge for counter-drone companies is developing systems that can target drones accurately in rough seas and withstand corrosive salt water.

Starr said D-fend, whose technology was used to protect US ports in this year’s football World Cup, had created a “hardened ruggedised version” of its system for maritime use, which had been a “great growth driver”.

But keeping up with the evolving threat is a constant struggle.

“It’s a never-ending cycle,” said Balloch. “Just when you think you’ve deployed the best thing you have ever deployed, it changes. Things are moving that fast.”