The Chamber of Commerce reconvenes Monday to the sealed Fuel Stabilisation Reserve, and it does so in a week that has rearranged every assumption beneath the vote. Overnight naval intercepts in the Eastern Reaches, reported by the Foreign Ministry in a statement that ran to six lines and no more, suggest that missile and drone activity in the shipping lanes carrying Almarian fuel has passed from intermittent to sustained. Underwriter surcharges on southern-corridor hulls, already circulated at twelve to eighteen per cent, are now understood by two Chamber members to be nearer the upper bound.

Don Cordoba, who chairs the Chamber and who has spent the week in the quieter work of the harbour and the encrypted line, has made no public statement on the reserve since Tuesday. Those who have sat with him describe a man disinclined to drama and unwilling to let Monday's sitting be conducted as anything other than the vote it is. The accessory business — the Cardenal's request for a Maritime Safety Subcommittee, the Northern Tariff file, the register of merchant hulls still riding at anchor off the Vella — has been gathered into a single folder and set aside for Tuesday.

Cardenal Marín's request that the Subcommittee sit before the fuel vote has been acknowledged by the Chamber clerks. It has not been scheduled. The Cardenal, who does not press, has not pressed.

The Foreign Ministry's warning that a prolonged disruption could drive domestic fuel prices up by as much as eight per cent before the summer is the kind of figure that tends, in Almarian commercial memory, to be an opening bid. The Commerce Hall's assessment, circulated privately on Wednesday, puts the range higher if the corridor surcharges hold through June.

Foreign Minister Vidal will convene the Cross-Party Maritime Security Committee at the Palau de Govern on Thursday next. It is understood that the Prime Minister will not attend in person. The Chamber, for its part, will have voted by then.