Privateering is the seventh solo studio album by British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released on 3 September 2012 by Mercury Records. The first studio double-album of Knopfler's 35-year career as a recording artist, Privateering consists of 20 original songs (plus four more released in other editions), and integrates blues rock with traditional folk and country genres. Recorded between March and December 2011, the album received generally positive reviews throughout Europe, and reached the number one position on album charts in Austria, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands, as well as the number two or three position in Belgium, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The album peaked at number eight in the United Kingdom. The album was released in North America a full year after its European release due to a contractual dispute between Knopfler and his North American distributors.

Privateering was Knopfler's first album in three years. In January 2011, Knopfler produced the album The Sailor's Revenge for Bap Kennedy at British Grove Studios in London. Knopfler built the award-winning studio in 2005 and recorded Kill to Get Crimson (2007) and Get Lucky (2009) at the state-of-the-art facility. For the Bap Kennedy project, Knopfler enlisted the help of several top session players, including Jerry Douglas, Glenn Worf, John McCusker and Michael McGoldrick. They were joined by James Walbourne, Ian Thomas and Guy Fletcher. By March 2011, Knopfler and Guy Fletcher returned to British Grove to begin work on Knopfler's next album.

Privateering was recorded at Studio 2 at British Grove Studios in London between 4 March and 7 December 2011, with additional backing vocals, drum overdubs and strings recorded in February 2012. On 4 March 2011, Knopfler and Fletcher began pre-production on the new album. For the next three months, as Knopfler ran through the new songs, the two discussed possible arrangements and the best instruments to support each song. Knopfler tested numerous guitars from his collection in search of the right sound for each song. Fletcher later wrote, "Each and every one of the guitars to hand has different characteristics and can lend itself to a particular song. The trouble is, there's no way of knowing this unless you try them all, so part of our routine when we set up for a recording is to find which guitar will work best 'for the song'."

By late May 2011, Knopfler and Fletcher were joined in the studio by Glenn Worf (bass), Richard Bennett (guitars, bouzouki, and tiple), and Jim Cox (piano, organ), as well as Ian Thomas (drums) who had played on the Bap Kennedy sessions earlier in the year. In early June, this core group was joined by folk musicians John McCusker (fiddle, cittern), Michael McGoldrick (whistles, uilleann pipes), and Phil Cunningham (accordion), with Paul Franklin (pedal steel guitar) joining later in the month. The recording process Knopfler and Fletcher chose for this album involved pre-tracking the songs with the core lineup and later bringing in the folk musicians to overdub their parts. For some tracks, the core group recorded their basic tracks over preliminary tracks that Knopfler and Fletcher worked out.

Recording continued throughout the summer of 2011. In September, work on the album was suspended while Knopfler and his band prepared for a European tour with Bob Dylan that lasted from 6 October to 20 November. On 21 November, the band returned to British Grove Studios for two weeks to complete the recording of Privateering. Knopfler and his band were joined by two additional guest musicians, Tim O'Brien (mandolin) and Kim Wilson (harp). The final recording session was on 7 December 2011.

Knopfler, Fletcher and Ainlay spent much of January and February 2012 mixing the tracks for Privateering in Studio 2 at British Grove. The mixing to master process involved three analog two-track Ampex ATR-100 tape machines, fitted with one-inch, half-inch and quarter-inch head blocks. They also mastered digitally via Prism and Apogee interfaces in Pro Tools at 96k and 192k and in Nuendo at 96k. The team would then listen back to all the formats and decide which was best for the song. Fletcher later wrote, "The results are rarely what we expect with both digital and analog gaining preference although the analog tends to win most of the time."

In February, Ruth Moody from the Wailin' Jennys was invited to sing some backing vocals, and Ian Thomas came in to rerecord his drum part for one of the songs. Composer Rupert Gregson-Williams was then brought in to supervise and conduct the strings. Knopfler and Gregson-Williams decided on an unusual string section that included eight celli, six violas and six violins. Final mastering of the album was done by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine.

Privateering was released on 3 September 2012 in the United Kingdom and Canada in several formats. There are several different versions: