As of 20 July, the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre recorded the following information:

Total Attacks Worldwide: 280
Total Hijackings Worldwide: 29

Incidents Reported for Somalia:
Total Incidents: 166
Total Hijackings:21
Total Hostages: 362
Total Killed: 7

Current vessels held by Somali pirates:
Vessels: 20
Hostages: 398

Here's what this looks like, Piracy Map 2011

Well, the high rates of piracy along the eastern coast (Somali based) is to be expected. Comparing trends across years reveals shifts in flashpoints - with Somali-based pirate operations moving away from the shore and further out into the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. On the other side of the globe, in South Asia, the Strait of Singapore experiences about 1-2 attacks per month, many of which are vessels being towed by a tug.  I'm a little more interested in the developments in the Gulf of Guinea where based on my count there have been 24 reported successful attacks with the bulk of them coming off of the coast of Benin. Less than 10 attempted but unsuccessful attacks were reported. Piracy is also apparently a growing concern for Southern Africa with numerous attempted attacks occuring off the coast of Tanzania and north of Madagascar. Such trends have global energy supply implications given that "six million tons of oil are transported around South Africa's western coastline every month" as well as regional energy production implications. The Gulf of Guinea is a well-known energy hub however across the continent there have been some important domestic discoveries for Tanzania where natural gas reserves are estimated to be 2 trillion cubic feet (tcf). In addition, PanOcean Energy, Aminex plc, and EnerGulf are in the area conducting oil exploration activities. In the AFP, South Africa's Defence Minister was reported saying: 

"Our assessment is that Southern African waters are increasingly becoming an attractive alternative to Somali pirates as they try to avoid the clamp-down of various maritime task forces around the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden - purely by moving into largely unprotected parts of the Indian Ocean,"

It will be interesting to see how the Southern African Development Community (SADC) addresses the situation - personally I think a lot of success can be had from a regional approach that leverages joint operations amongst African nations. Onshore, the SADC Regional Early Warning Centre, based in Botswana, can also have a prominent role in addresses threats early on. While I doubt that piracy in this region can be altogether eliminated, it can be contained and made more difficult for attacks to take place. This involves both aware and viligent ships passing through this corridor as well as regional state efforts to offer support, patrols, and rapid response to incidents.