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As the year ends, we take time this month to reflect back in this year and evaluate what happened. In this article, we look at the rise of piracy in Ocean Shipping. According to a report by the ICC International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre, the first nine months of 2018 saw a rise in the number of pirate attacks on merchant vessels around the world from 121 to 156. The report broke down the figures to 107 vessels boarded, 32 attempted attacks, 13 vessels fired upon and four vessels. That is a large number. Even though no vessels were reported hijacked in the third quarter for the first time since 1994, the number of crew members held hostage has increased in comparison to the same period in 2017. This was a jump from 80 to 112. The most dangerous part of the world for merchant ships being attacked is the Gulf of Guinea. There were 57 out of the 156 reported attacks here, with major of these taking place on or near the coast of Nigeria. Ghana, its neighbour, has also seen an obvious increase in attacks, particularly in the number of vessels boarded by pirates. The region has seen several high profile attacks, including a 12-crew kidnapping from a bulk carrier off Bonny Island, Nigeria in September 2018. 11 crew members were taken hostage in an attack on the MV Pomerania (which is under investigation). An EOS Risk report in August 2018, world-leading global security service company, mentioned that 35 seafarers had been kidnapped in the first half of 2018. It advised that political instability in the Niger Delta was one of the reasons why. Pottengal Mukundan, Director of IMB, commented: “ While the record low number of hijackings in the second and third quarters of 2018 is, of course, to be celebrated, incidents of maritime piracy and armed robbery remain common. ICC urges governments to leverage the timely data available from the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre to concentrate resources in these hotspots ”.