CSI Spring 2022

SPRING 2022

CIRCLES OF TRUST

How IT enables transparency and efficiency in fuel supplies

JOINING THE DOTS

Why a partnership-based approach is best to navigate ballast water bottlenecks

MULTI TOOLS

A systems approach to surviving the future fuels transition

supporting Clean Shipping initiatives

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FROM THE EDITOR

KEEPING UP THE PACE OF CHANGE

Sandra Speares Editor, Clean Shipping International

As the shipping industry gears up for the next wave of deadlines and targets for meeting environmental commitments, it is clear that time is not on owners’ and operators’ sides and they are coming under more pressure to reduce emissions.

As recent presentations by industry players show, efforts made thus far may be insufficient and the drive should be towards net zero rather than reductions specified by international bodies such as the International Maritime Organization.

That said, a lot of work has been achieved as companies and industry bodies get together to explore new relationships that aim to tackle environmental targets. It should also be said that it is not just a question of ticking the boxes as far as deadlines are concerned, but ensuring that companies can actually implement change in the longer term, even if they are able to meet the deadlines in the short term.

Failure to ensure that change can work in practical terms has been a problem in the past as far as implementing new rules are concerned. However, there has been a huge effort on many fronts to explore innovative new paths to reducing emissions as some of the contributors to this edition of Clean Shipping International demonstrate.

Whether it is retro-fitting duel fuel systems, using hybrid power, nuclear energy – now back on the agenda after being beyond the pale at times in the past – or wind power, there are a lot of impressive initiatives for consideration.

Use of scrubbers has been one means of filling the gap between the use of higher sulphur products and the new range of fuels, which hopefully will become increasingly available and affordable for operators. Companies are now beginning to look beyond the scrubber stage to realistic alternatives.

As operators seek to cut costs and avoid costly and logistically difficult periods in dry dock, there are also rafts of new initiatives out there on the IT front, not only to manage emissions, but also to make working patterns more efficient while offering better value for money.

Hopefully, if the situation begins to ease as far as the pandemic is concerned, pressures on crew issues and port time will ease, which will go a long way towards helping operators as they go forward with green initiatives.

One thing is certain, though: there will be a great deal of attention paid to shipping’s performance when it comes to environmental issues and the industry will need to move forward rapidly with initiatives to meet requirements – perhaps more rapidly than many players would like.

We hope you enjoy this edition of Clean Shipping International.

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

Editor: Sandra Speares speares1@ aol.com Project Director: Jonathon Ferris Jonathon.ferris@ csi-newsonline.com Sub-editor: Samantha Robinson sam.robinson.journalist@ gmail.com Publisher: Bill Robinson publisher@ csi-newsonline.com Designer: Justin Ives justindesign@ live.co.uk Published by Maritime AMC, Clean Shipping International supports Clean Shipping Initiatives.

The views expressed in Clean Shipping International are not necessarily those of Maritime AMC unless expressly stated as such and disclaim any responsibility for errors or omissions or their consequences or for advertisements contained in this magazine and has no legal responsibility to deal with them.

Distributed to the members of

CLEANSHIPPINGALLIANCE2020

csi-newsonline.com

THE SCRUBBER MAKER PureteQ scrubber systems feature the lowest OPEX in the business and are easy to install.

All scrubber systems come with state-of-theart intuitive control systems with full remote accessibility.

Servicing hundreds of scrubber systems of almost all brands, we have gained extensive knowledge of most scrubber systems. PureteQ offer s ervice a greements w ithout b inding and without pre-payment. You only pay for the services that you need and this at a fair price. As an integral part of this agreement, we offer a 24/7 service desk manned by professional marine engineers, who have undergone a comprehensive training in all components of a scrubber system, including sensors. The Service Agreement is an umbrella agreement that has several options tailored to match your needs. In other words, we offer you an unparalleled “one-stop-shopping center for scrubbers and associated equipment”.

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45 COATINGS

FROM THE EDITOR

Shipowners and operators need to keep

Why there is little room for manoeuvre

up the pace of environmental change

when it comes to securing space in

6

Don Gregory, Director, Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems Association

8

shipyards to carry out maintenance and

WELCOME

repair work » p15

The latest innovations in propulsion

WORLD NEWS

systems, which meet environmental

All the latest innovations and initiatives

as well as commercial shipping

from across the globe

industry needs

15 SCRUBBERS

52 IT

Stefan Petersson of Yara Marine Technologies reveals the company’s

48 PROPULSION

» p24

AI, such as weather routing, can be a

plans for a future-proof portfolio, plus

game changer in the shipping industry,

the latest news from the industry sector

plus a look at digitising transparency and trust in fuel supplies

24 EMISSIONS

58 BALLAST WATER

Smart solutions to port sustainability, plus how the port of Rotterdam is

Why shipowners need a partnership-

facing up to a damning report on its

based approach to navigate ballast

pollution production

32 REGULATIONS

water bottlenecks, plus funding and » p32

62 GREEN PORTS

New rules from the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency tackle safety issues

Is it possible to provide reliable, cost-

for seafarers

effective, and low emission power to

36 ALTERNATIVE FUELS

ports? The answer might lie in methanol-to-hydrogen technology

Multi-fuel systems and hybrid power offer a systems approach to surviving the future, plus why sustainability

partnership initiatives in the sector

» p36

targets encourage fossil fuel use

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

64 LAST WORD A round-up of news and views

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WELCOME

CALLING NGOS TO ACCOUNT

Don Gregory Director, Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems Association

As this edition of Clean Shipping International is published, the world looks on at the tragedies unfolding in the Ukraine. We are witnessing what will almost certainly be long-reaching consequences to the global economy, and the loss of human rights and hard-fought gains in our worldwide civilisation. Others seeking absolute control will be watching the unfolding roll-back of democracy while observing how the democratic world reacts.

It is no surprise that in a world where we enjoy high living standards, finance and energy can be a greater force for good and influence than guns and munitions.

However, we have witnessed that poor policy and misguided influencing can make the implementation of sanctions (energy) difficult if not impossible in the EU. The EU’s energy policy, often misinformed by misguided non-governmental organisation (NGO) beliefs rather than facts and holistic assessment, has made the EU beholden to an aggressive supplier of natural gas. So in effect, the EU is funding the Russian war effort with little means of effecting sanctions.

Ursula von der Leyen’s call to turn down the thermostats is a good effort and should be implemented immediately, but it will not release the EU from Russian gas supplies.

Not for the first time has energy policy driven by poor information and lack of strategic planning come back to haunt the EU. Biofuel directives and the German abandonment of nuclear are all poor decisions that appear to be based on a belief rather than science and strategy.

In general, these decisions have been costly for the tax payer and, overall, increased net CO2 emissions – not ideal given the EU wishes to be at the vanguard of CO2 emissions reductions.

While the benefits of marine diesel engine exhaust gas cleaning technology become more apparent, shipowners face misinformation from prominent NGOs and the EU. An NGO that appears to have the ear of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), based on the number of submissions of papers to MEPC on subjects such as black carbon, has advised this editorial that its sole objective is the banning of the use of high sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) on

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

board ships. The NGO seems unable to accept that the input does not need to relate to the output. Low-cost, low CO2 energy does not need to mean higher emissions or pollution.

The two components simply don’t equate.

The inconvenient truth is that several studies and the oil industry’s own assessments support the fact that the well-to-wake emissions of CO2 from HSFO is significantly lower than the use of a more refined IMOprescribed fuel such as marine gas oil. Just like turning down European thermostats by 2-3° would reduce natural gas demand massively, we should be promoting EGCS as a short-term but immediate measure that will reduce shipping’s CO2 emissions overnight.

A 10% reduction in CO2 today is an easy and significant contribution to slowing the current rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

For shipowners, their contribution to limiting CO2 concentration in the atmosphere comes as a net benefit. With a price difference in excess of $200/t, payback for an EGCS investment is often less than 12 months.

The benefits of EGCS are numerous and as the technology evolves with requirements to limit toxic emissions, emissions of black carbon, further reductions in NOx emissions and reductions in methane slip, the relevance and need for these systems is just not going to go away.

The worrying trend has been that shipowners are nervous and misinformed, and the investment in EGCS technology is lagging where it should be today.

Why is this? Due in totality to misdirected and misinformed NGO lobbying and consequent government policy development based on incorrect information.

Is this state of affairs inevitable? Like the invasion of Ukraine, the democratic world can stand back and allow it to happen, or it can stand up and be counted.

Shipowners and the marine industry need to question the acceptability of NGOs’ current level of influence, as well as their underlying objectives.

To do nothing will mean wasted time at IMO, foolish decisions and stranded investments while witnessing no significant reductions in emissions, whether greenhouse gas or pollution.

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NEWS ROUND-UP

How quickly the industry has been responding to the need for change to tackle environmental issues is just one topic on the agenda in recent months

TAKING DIRECT ACTION Speaking at the UK Chamber of Shipping annual dinner recently, Chamber President John Denholm called on the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to take more decisive action to cut emissions from the international shipping industry.

“I acknowledge the progress that IMO has made in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the industry through technical measures, but the game has changed. It is no longer about mitigating emissions – it is about eliminating them and eliminating them by 2050.

“If we are to achieve this, we need that market-based measure to drive the change and we need it now as the ships we build in 2030 are going to be part of the fleet in 2050,” Denholm told the audience, which included the IMO secretary general Kitack Lim. “Secretary General, in recent months you have talked about what needs to happen and I urge you now to show bravery and leadership and convince everyone of the

urgency – and give us the market-based measure that will drive the change. A market based measure is not about raising revenue – it is about driving change and if the system adopted takes money out of the equation, it is simply going to mean that the cost of the change is going to be greater.

“I therefore urge the industry and member states to put aside self interest and help the IMO find a solution that they can implement that will drive the change to net zero.”

Denholm also urged UK Shipping Minister Robert Courts not to be tempted to adopt regional measures to help cut emissions.

“Because of the lack of progress at IMO, member nations are now losing faith in IMO’s ability to put in place a global measure and are planning to implement their own measures.

“Minister, I know it must be tempting to follow the route that Europe is taking to establish a regional Emission Trading Scheme as the money this would raise would help reduce the budget deficit.

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NEWS ROUND-UP

“It all sounds terribly simple: tax half the emissions of a ship arriving in the UK – but the devil is in the detail. A container ship will only discharge part of its cargo in the UK and this cargo will have been loaded at multiple ports along the way.

“Please don’t be tempted! It is not simple. A plethora of regional marketbased measures would put a terrible burden on our industry, depress trade and would inevitably be inequitable.

“Instead we ask you to campaign against nations setting up regional or national market based measures.”

NUCLEAR OPTION

Core Power, which produces advanced nuclear energy technology for ocean transportation, has released a special report on the massproduction of zero-carbon fuels for shipping, using advanced nuclear technologies offshore.

The production of green ammonia is a key component of the decarbonisation plans for international shipping. While the largest 17,000 ships are unlikely to find economic value in using hydrogen-derived green fuels, a very significant portion of the world fleet may find green ammonia to be a viable pathway to zero-emissions.

The decarbonisation of other difficult-to-abate sectors, such as chemical and steel manufacture as well as aviation, will also require the manufacture of a substantial amount of these green e-fuels.

“Our concept design is for an offshore facility partnering advanced nuclear power with an offshore ammonia production facility, which will create green ammonia from abundant seawater and air. No emissions would come from the plant,” says Rory Megginson, Core Power’s director of analytics.

Core Power modelling shows that with current technology, it is possible to produce one million tonnes of ammonia per year using 1.2GW of electric power, on each floating production platform, reducing to 0.9GW by 2050. This is the equivalent of 440,000 tonnes of very low sulphur fuel oil (VLFSO) and it would allow the decarbonisation of a considerable number of vessels.

The flexible nature of these systems will mean it will also be possible to provide a mixture of electricity, hydrogen, and ammonia for other applications, including chemical manufacturing and aviation.

Dr Megginson says: “The production of green ammonia at sea using advanced nuclear power would be superior to both production from renewables and non-marine atomic systems because atomic power has the highest capacity factor of any power generation method – whereas intermittent renewables, notably wind and solar, have the lowest. This reliability and dispatchability makes advanced atomic the ideal power source for e-fuel production.”

Moving the reactors to sea will allow for a substantial reduction in costs due to the lack of a need for expensive civil engineering, as well as opening the possibility of shipyard construction.

The production of Molten Salt Reactor technology is modular by design rather than the historical “first of a kind reactor” that has kept nuclear generation prices elevated up until now.

“Our concept design is for an offshore facility partnering advanced nuclear power with an offshore ammonia production facility, which will create green ammonia from abundant seawater and air”

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

GREENER TANKER

Swedish tanker operator Terntank and the Port of Gothenburg have welcomed Tern Island, a tanker that emits no greenhouse gases or carbon particulates during port operations.

Tern Island is equipped with a new electric power supply hybrid system, including a battery pack, on-shore power supply and a DC-link system, which is reported to be able to reduce its auxiliary energy consumption during port operations by -99%.

The shore power connection has been developed together with the Port of Gothenburg – the first port in the world that can connect tankers to electricity.

Furthermore, Tern Island is 100% biofuel compatible. The main engine, boiler and auxiliary engine are designed to reduce the environmental impact and perform safe operations running on biofuels. By combining the optimised hull and rudder design with dual fuel capability, when utilising 30% biogas – in comparison with a same-sized conventional vessel – Tern Island reduces emission of CO2 by -70% and almost eliminated the emissions of sulphur oxide (-99%), of particle emission, (-99%) and nitrogen oxide (-97%).

Designed by Terntank and Kongsberg Maritime at China Merchants Jinling Shipyard, Yangzhou, the vessel is the first of a series of two 15,000DWT chemical and product tankers in the Terntank Hybrid Solution series. The vessel combines a dual-fuel powered engine that uses LBG or LNG, which means that it is able to operate on completely fossilfree fuel.

Tern Island‘s hybrid solution does not only enable performance on fossilfree port operations, but also enables peak shaving to reduce the emissions even further. The battery packs also provides an energy reserve for power generation, limiting unnecessary parallel running of generators and provides a blackout prevention function that keeps the electrical network alive.

The shore power supply is part of Gothenburg’s Energy Port initiative, which is the first of its kind in the world. When complete, it will enable a reduction in carbon emissions from

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vessels in the port by 1,800 tonnes per year.

The port of Gävle in Sweden is also finalising its shore power connection in June 2022 and Port of Porvoo is in the planning stage, making the potential of shore power related CO2 emission savings even greater.

TRANSPARENT TRANSPORT

Port of Rotterdam Authority and BigMile are developing a digital platform to identify transport-related emissions in the port.

Data, including from AIS, a system that registers all vessel movements, is combined with a TNO calculation model, enabling a precise calculation of transport sector emissions.

The platform also provides insight into emissions at a business location, for example, and should also provide companies with more details on carbon and other emission levels in their total transport chain.

The emission platform is helping the Port Authority and business community make choices on route to a carbonneutral port.

So far, this concerns a pilot project to calculate seagoing and inland vessel movements in Rotterdam. Road and rail transport will be added at a later stage. The goal for the coming six months is to include emissions from

NEWS ROUND-UP

supply chains on route to and leaving the port of Rotterdam in order to clarify transport emissions from door to door.

The digital platform and knowledge gained are scheduled to be shared with shipping companies and terminals in the second half of 2022.

The platform is already proving useful in providing insight into such things as vessel emission levels when berthed at the quay; information that is useful in developing shore power projects. When berthed at the quay, vessels then switch off their generators and connect to shore power. The BigMile platform can clarify how much air pollution shore power connections prevent.

“With millions of transport movements, we are the largest port in Europe. This means that our activities can have a huge impact on making logistics more sustainable,” says Nico van Dooren, who is responsible for the Port of Rotterdam Authority’s energy transition programme.

The Port Authority is working on a series of related projects to make industry and logistics more sustainable, from determining optimal connections via the most sustainable modality to the production of alternative fuels in Rotterdam and promoting fast and efficient port call handling.

With BigMile, the Port of Rotterdam Authority is taking a step towards using sound data to manage this reduction strategy. BigMile has developed a calculation and analysis platform to help shippers and logistics service providers optimise and report on the multi-modal transport-related carbon emissions of their transport.

The SaaS platform, which already has over 200 users, enables shippers and logistics service providers to comply with the imminent carbon reporting requirements and impending carbon taxes.

“In the first project phase, we are focusing on area emissions in the port of Rotterdam area, from 60km offshore to the Brienenoordbrug. We are literally ‘charting’ sea-going and inland shipping’s actual emissions based on vessel and vehicle movements,” explains Wouter Nering Bögel, BigMile project manager.

“These analyses enable us to use hard data to anticipate concrete improvement opportunities, and we are better able to assess the impact of measures in advance,” adds van Dooren.

“The aim is to enable companies to manage carbon emission reduction in both the port and the entire supply chain that runs via Rotterdam.”

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

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NEWS ROUND-UP

TIME MANAGEMENT

Marcura subsidiary PortLog, the world’s first port time management platform, has announced a landmark deal to provide its solution to the entire fleet of Pacific Basin, one of the world’s leading owners and operators of modern handysize and supramax dry bulk ships.

The PortLog platform will be utilised across all of Pacific Basin’s more than 260 owned and chartered vessels, which make more than 5,000 port calls every year in around 600 ports across 100 countries. This will enable the company to dramatically reduce the risks and costs associated with time spent in ports, as well as driving operational, cost and environmental efficiencies within the port environment and “last mile” of the supply chain.

PortLog is a single platform and digital solution combining standardised Statement of Fact (SoF) data with AIS, weather and berth-level restriction data, which will enable Pacific Basin to measure and analyse its vessels’ turnaround times in ports, and deliver insights into costs, berth-level restrictions and productivity.

Using PortLog, Pacific Basin will be able to estimate ports costs (including potential discounts and tariffs), reduce risks and identify opportunities related to port stays by predicting port time and delays at a terminal level, having up-to-date information on real-time terminal restrictions, weather and rain impact as well as port holidays.

Through adopting PortLog’s knowledge management infrastructure, the “Learning Loop”, Pacific Basin will have the capability to share key

insights at terminal level across the company and its entire fleet, starting with the more than 1,400 Marcura observations available in the platform from day one.

Much progress has been made within the shipping industry to increase operational efficiencies within seaborne trade through vessel optimisation, digitalisation and clean technologies.

However, there is a significant latent efficiency within ports where vessels will spend as much as 40% of their time, incurring large costs, unplanned downtime and an increase in unnecessary and avoidable emissions.

Commenting on the development, Kristian Helt, chartering director, Pacific Basin, says: “The shipping industry is rapidly transforming, becoming increasingly complex and rightly focusing on how it can reduce emissions and meet International Maritime Organization decarbonisation regulations.

“We embrace the challenge of decarbonisation and have integrated sustainability into our business and strategy. We are investing in digitalisation and state-of-the-art systems and digital solutions that are needed to drive greater operational and cost efficiencies and reduce our environmental impact.

“In conjunction with this, harnessing data to provide real insight and intelligence enables better decision making. Utilising an advanced platform like PortLog is representative of our strategy and commitment to such investments and to delivering a more optimised and efficient freight service in our customers’ supply chain. This

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

enhances our competitive advantage, provides more value for our customers and supports the decarbonisation of the shipping industry.”

Jens Poulsen, Group CEO, Marcura, says: “There are a host of tools within the market available to help ship owners and operators optimise and drive efficiencies while at sea. It is now clear that the opportunity for tramp shipping to further improve efficiencies and reduce costs and emissions now lies within the port environment; with PortLog we are helping companies solve this crucial last piece of the voyage optimisation puzzle.”

INTRODUCING ACCELLERON

ABB has announced that its Turbocharging division (PA), which provides heavy duty turbocharging for diesel and gas engines, has unveiled its new brand name – Accelleron.

Accelleron provides turbocharging technologies and optimisation solutions for 0.5 to 80+ MW engines, helping to provide sustainable and reliable power to the marine, energy, rail, and off-highway sectors. With an installed base of approximately 180,000 turbochargers and a network of more than 100 service stations worldwide, its innovative technologies and digital solutions give its customers the power to move further.

Turbochargers enable significant improvements in efficiency, increasing engine output by up to 300 percent and thereby energy efficiency by up to 10 percent. Conventional engines would be up to four times their size without a turbocharger.

Under ideal conditions, ABB’s turbochargers offer a further 2% improvement compared to the industry benchmark, amounting to $1m in lifetime savings for a large container vessel.

ABB’s turbochargers reduce fuel consumption and hence CO2 emissions by an average of 405,000 tons per annum for the shipping industry alone, while also playing a crucial role in balancing power for national grids, power extensions in emerging economies and microgrids as well as back-up power for critical infrastructure, for example data centres.

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COMPANY PROFILE

PURETEQ: STATE-OF-THEART SCRUBBER MAKER PureteQ designs, delivers and commissions built-to-fit maritime scrubber systems for shipowners who want to save money on fuel by continuing the use of heavy fuel oil (HFO). Recently, we have seen the price span between compliant fuel and HFO increase to almost historic levels and interest for scrubber systems seems to be increasing with the growing price span.

All PureteQ scrubbers comes with state-of-the-art intuitive control systems, including full real-time remote accessibility. This feature allows detailed trouble-shooting assistance to crews without physical attendance.

PURETEQ:

Singaporean subsidiary. This is yet another PureteQ Service Point in Asia, with a limited stocked warehouse, and will provide for even speedier delivery of spare parts and full service of all client vessels calling at Singapore.

Our new colleagues there will, of course, be of our usual well-known high standards and, prior to attending your vessels, they will attend the PureteQ Academy and perform onboard training to ensure high quality to a fair price from day one.

We continue to offer cost-efficient 24/7 remote on-line support/guidance to ship crews from our certified marine engineers. You will always talk to a certified service engineer when you call PureteQ. The modular training programme remains very popular among crews, officers and onshore personnel. The

training is done virtually or, if needed, with on-board presence as part of the annual service visit. All training modules offer share-point-based questionnaires and tutorials to ease the understanding of the training and, when exams are passed, training certificates are automatically issued

by PureteQ.

AGREEMENTS FOR ALL

Servicing hundreds of scrubber systems of almost all brands, we have gained extensive knowledge of most systems. We have learned to rectify any issue by combining our technical know-how with handson-experience. We often co-exist with the original maker during the warranty periods.

PureteQ offers service agreements without bindings and without

patent granted for combined carbon capture and power to x technology WORLDWIDE SERVICE

It is our mission to provide uninterrupted service, anywhere and at any time. We already assist hundreds of vessels remotely with trouble shooting, and advice on operation and maintenance, as well as optimisation. We also dispatch expert marine engineers from our nearest office to anywhere in the world, for on-site assistance.

To further enhance our physical presence globally, we are pleased to announce the recent opening of our

The control system is based on the well-known and well-proven software from PureteQ, which allows full remote control in real time

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

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COMPANY PROFILE

prepayment – you only pay for the services that you need and this will be at a fair price. As an integral part of this agreement, we offer a 24/7 service desk manned by professional marine engineers, who have undergone a comprehensive training in all components of a scrubber systems, including sensors. In other words, we offer you an unparalleled “one-stop-shop” for scrubbers and associated equipment.

Clients are in safe hands when they enter a PureteQ / PureServ service agreement. We have the tools, the manpower and the skillset to make a difference. Furthermore, we supply some of the most advanced and easyto-use software in the business. We can even replace software (and some hardware) on other brand scrubbers if needed.

We are also offering clients cloudbased software for environmental performance reporting and optimisation of scrubbers across the fleet. It features the measuring of MARPOL compliance, operational performance (impact on specific fuel oil

consumption) as well as environmental performance reporting, such as sulphur, CO2 and, later, particulate matter reductions. The software is a perfect match to new International Maritime Organization regulations on Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index and Canada Customs Invoice, when well-to-wake principles apply.

This software will allow for cross ship / fleet learning for crews, hence reducing costs.

The service agreement itself is an umbrella agreement that has several options tailored to match your needs.

Shipowners may at any time add or exclude the options and include or exclude ships from the agreement – all it takes is an e-mail describing the changes, which, shortly after receipt, will be confirmed and executed.

PureteQ PureServ is privileged to quote service agreements for scrubber systems of any brand.

EXCITING DEVELOPMENT

In 2018, the PureteQ Group (PureteQ and ESTECH) began a research programme into carbon capture

technology, and we are pleased to announce that we have recently been granted the patent on a technology that combines carbon capture from exhaust gas with power to X. The solution is a unique combination of carbon capture and parallel production of hydrogen.

Tests carried out at our pilot plant at a Danish wastewater treatment plant indicate that approximately 80% of the green energy utilised for carbon capture is stored in hydrogen. CO2 and hydrogen are building blocks for fuels and other products. The technology has the potential to become the most energy-efficient carbon capture and storage technology on the market for small and medium-sized industries.

The technology is based on the PureteQ’s exhaust gas purification technology with patented hydrodynamic fluid distribution, as well as on the existing and proven digital platform for other in-house technologies. The Group has thus been able to accelerate the product development process.

The hydrodynamic fluid distribution ensures optimal conditions for the gas/ fluid reaction, resulting in a smaller reaction chamber/scrubber.

As of December 2021, PureteQ/ ESTECH has been granted funding via the Danish Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP) for scaling of the pilot plant of 10 to 40 times the existing size.

The pilot plant continues to operate, while a larger, fully functional plant is being planned for commissioning during 2022 and 2023. The first full sized commercial CCCH₂ plant is expected in 2023/2024.

For more information, contact: Anders Skibdal, CEO Tel: + 45 4017 1400 Email: anders@pureteq.com

PureteQ Group pilot plant for combined Carbon Capture and parallel production of hydrogen (CCCH2 technology)

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

Michael Mouritzen, Sales Tel: +45 4014 4481 mim@pureteq.com pureteq.com

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SCRUBBERS: INTERVIEW

As companies consider the next stage in development past the use of scrubbing technology, Clean Shipping International talks to Stefan Petersson, of Yara Marine Technologies about the company’s plans

A FUTURE-PROOF PORTFOLIO

Stefan Petersson COO, Yara Marine Technologies

Q As Yara Marine Technologies’ emphasis shifts from being a scrubber provider to becoming a green technologies enabler, could you tell us more about the evolution of the company and its offering?

A Since day one, Yara Marine Technologies (YMT) has had a green focus and desire to help shipping be more sustainable. Our initial focus was to help operators comply with the IMO 2020 sulphur cap through the use of scrubbers, enabling them to comply with emission restrictions without needing to switch to expensive distillates. Over the past few years, the maritime sector and regulatory bodies have increased the focus on decarbonisation.

However, following the covid-19 pandemic and dovetailed with a weakening oil price, the appetite for scrubbers has weakened.

Consequently, this has presented us with the opportunity to re-evaluate our portfolio to meet shifting customer demands.

Our commitment to helping fight climate change made the new path clear: to provide and scale up clean technologies that benefit

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

the shipping industry on its decarbonisation journey. Thus, our mission moved beyond scrubbers to “providing technologies to enable a greener maritime industry”. We are glad to see that maritime sensibilities have matured and stakeholders agree on the need to decarbonise, allowing us to concentrate on getting the best solutions to our customers.

For decarbonisation to be sustainable, we believe that we must keep an open mind to all available options. We have taken this approach with our portfolio, which consists of a mixture of both existing and emerging solutions. Over the past year, we have embraced a wide range of clean technologies, including solutions to automatically reduce consumption of any fuel on a vessel (FuelOpt), collect and analyse fleet-wide data (Fleet Analytics) and eliminate emissions at berth using shore power solutions.

We are also very proud of our partnership with BAR Technologies to develop, produce, and commercialise WindWings – a windassisted propulsion solution.

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Q There is still a lot of interest in scrubber solutions in the short term. will Yara Marine continue offering scrubbers going forward? How do you think the scrubber business will evolve in the mid/long term?

A We believe in offering customers the right solution for their needs – and this includes emission abatement technologies such as scrubbers. In fact, we are constantly working on developing and improving both our inline scrubbers (I-type and L-type) and packed bed scrubbers (U-type), with both open- and closed-loop options.

Our new scrubber installations include Yara Marine’s ratio control system that prevents the YMT scrubber system from over-scrubbing and reduces operational costs by up to 60%.

This efficiency gain is also possible for previously installed YMT scrubbers through a software upgrade.

While the industry will transition to alternative fuels in the long term, it is unsustainable to replace the existing fleet immediately, and retrofitting vessels to new fuels may not be technically or commercially feasible. This means that there will continue to be a market for vessels using conventional fuels, but these vessels need to comply with emission regulations. For these vessels that continue operating with heavy fuel oil (HFO) or a hybrid of very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) and HFO, SOx scrubbers are a suitable measure to improve their green profile.

Future fuels may also be suitable for scrubbing, so we are exploring all technological paths.

SCRUBBERS: INTERVIEW

Q As the industry is closely following the fuel price increase, many ship operators are concerned about its financial impact and some are bringing back scrubbers into the discussion.

What are your observations on this?

A The price of VLSFO (containing 0.5% sulphur) which is used by a majority of cargo ships is spiking, with news reports of a 55% year-on-year increase at the majority of bunkering ports. This has a huge impact on operating costs, especially in cases where fuel prices are fixed in charter parties and may prompt operators – particularly those who have been affected by the pandemic – to explore using less expensive fuel with higher sulphur content.

However, international regulations on emission levels are clear and noncompliance can have serious financial, operational, and reputational impacts.

Scrubbers offer operators using HFO and hybrid fuels the flexibility to use whichever fuel matches their budget without risking vessel detention or onerous fines – and, most importantly, without compromising their commitment to protecting the planet.

Q Alternative fuel discussions are high up on the shipping’s agenda.

Which one do you think has the best chance of gaining the approval of the industry? What are the key challenges?

A Although some fuels, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol, hydrogen and ammonia, are seeing intensive research and heavy investment by vessel operators, there is no guarantee that the entire industry will settle on a single fuel. There are many factors that will affect the fuel used, such as bunkering infrastructure, funding to retrofit older ships or equip new technologies, government incentives and, of course, increasingly stringent – and ambitious - regulations.

I believe that shipping will use a mix of fuels in the mid- and long-term, with a fuel of choice in certain regions/across major routes. The eventual fuel landscape is dependent on a tipping point in favour of a chosen few fuels – or even one.

Q Considering that the large-scale use of alternative fuels will take time, what would your advice be to shipping companies for the short/mid-term emissions reduction?

A Our most important advice is for operators to act now. There are multiple emission reduction solutions available on the market and every minute and every drop of fuel counts.

While some may worry about investing in technology that will become obsolete, we must remember that there is no single magic bullet to make shipping green forever.

Rather, progressively making vessels greener is the ideal way to save the planet and also meet regulatory requirements such as EEXI (Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index) and CII (Carbon Intensity Indicator), which lay the foundations for continuous improvement of the global fleet.

The business case for going greener is also very apparent for vessel optimisation solutions, as reduced fuel consumption (irrespective of fuel type) limits both emissions and operating expenses. YMT customers using our vessel optimisation solutions – FuelOpt, Fleet Analytics, and Route Pilot AI – have confirmed the financial and operating benefits of closing the loop between the voyage planning, execution and post-voyage analysis stages.

Q Remembering the cold ironing debate for cruise ships and the issue of plugging into shore-side energy supplies, the challenge was that shore-based energy needed to be greener than energy from the ship’s auxiliary engines, which very often was not the case. How is the situation in the industry today? What about the ship-toshore power technologies? Are the other issues such as incompatible systems solved?

A Decarbonisation and sustainability conversations are happening around the globe in various industries.

Not only are energy producers increasingly investing in renewables infrastructure, but there is also a greater degree of transparency about how green an energy source really is.

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Shipping is one of many industries competing for access to cleaner energy, but I’m glad to say that we are already seeing ports, terminal operators, and shipowners factor energy sources into their decarbonisation equations Furthermore, national, regional, and local regulatory bodies have already begun planning and implementing strict requirements for shore power, increasing the likelihood of this containing a higher percentage of clean energy in the mix.

Compatibility of systems across various ship types and ports is definitely an issue that must be considered carefully. In many cases, incompatibility is the result of operators combining various thirdparty systems that may not integrate well with each other.

At YMT, we address this by offering turnkey solutions that remove this risk in project-to-installation. Our

solutions are particularly costand time-efficient for large fleets, where compatibility in systems and equipment is critical to reduce the project management and administrative burden.

Furthermore, our worldwide after-sales and service is also able to manage customer needs (such as spare parts) for the lifetime of the product.

Q Does Yara Marine plan to expand its offering with other clean technologies?

A We believe that an open mind and collaborative approach are the ideal ways to build a greener future for maritime, which is why we are committed to adopting promising new technologies as they emerge. We feel strongly that our industry must be given all the tools it needs to transition to a decarbonised future.

GRIMALDI APPROACH

Technology group Wärtsilä, together with the shipping company Grimaldi Group, have unveiled a new system that uses exhaust gas scrubber washwater to tackle the amount of microplastics in the world’s oceans; a critical and growing global environmental challenge.

According to the association Plastic Europe, 368m tonnes of plastic were produced in 2019 worldwide and around 3%, or 11.4m tonnes, of this plastic ultimately ends up in the ocean. To tackle the growing amount of microplastics in the world’s seas, Grimaldi has developed and patented a system that filters out microplastics from open loop scrubber washwater.

Wärtsilä, in partnership with the Neapolitan group, will take the microplastics filtration system – which traps plastic particles before the washwater is returned to the ocean – to market. The capability to filter microplastics will be an integrated feature of Wärtsilä’s future washwater treatment system.

The new system requires very little changes to onboard procedure and uses the natural capabilities of an open loop scrubber to contribute to cleaning the oceans during each voyage. Currently, a 10-megawatt engine will require scrubbers to process approximately 450m3 of water per hour, potentially resulting in a large amount of microplastics being captured from seawater. According to early test results, the microplastics filtration system is efficient in capturing particles smaller than 10µm and the captured concentration by volume equals around 76 particles/m3.

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Moreover, we wish to encourage and support the creation of new technologies, which is why we launched our three-month tailored startup accelerator program, Yara Marine X. The second edition Yara Marine X was launched in December 2021 and is targeted at start-ups focused on clean technologies for the maritime sector. We believe that our program gives newcomers a unique opportunity to gain direct access to our network and resources.

We are also keen to adopt and support existing technologies, which is why we welcome partnership opportunities. After all, working together will benefit everyone, not just from a business viewpoint, but also by helping to secure a greener tomorrow.

Adding an abatement solution for microplastics to Wärtsilä’s portfolio further strengthens its commitment to use exhaust gas cleaning systems as a part of a modular platform that can enable further environmental technology innovations.

“Reducing microplastic pollution in our world’s oceans is an important challenge and we are pleased to provide a solution for the shipping industry,” comments Emanuele Grimaldi, managing director of the Grimaldi Group. “The idea for this innovative technology originated from recognising that open loop exhaust gas cleaning systems can draw seawater for exhaust scrubbing and simultaneously collect microplastic present in the oceans as part of their normal operation.

“We have already completed pilot testing of this system onboard one of our vessels deployed between Civitavecchia and Barcelona. The results are promising, with 64,680 microplastic particles collected on a single voyage between these two ports. We are glad that Wärtsilä also recognises the potential of this system, and we look forward to further collaboration to tackle microplastics in our oceans.”

Tamara de Gruyter, president marine systems at Wärtsilä, says: “Microplastics are a pressing environmental challenge and we’re proud to work together with Grimaldi to tackle cleaning up the oceans. Even more importantly, the ability to capture microplastics shows how scrubbers are a platform for solving a wide range of sustainability challenges – and now even ones that are beyond the stack.”

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SCRUBBERS: NEWS

North P&I Club has produced a useful guide to global ports’ approaches to scrubber use, while co-operation between companies is also pushing the environmental agenda

MEETING PORT PROTOCOLS The use of exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCSs), or scrubbers, is an accepted equivalent measure in complying with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 2020 global sulphur cap. However, their use has split the shipping industry, with some preferring to opt for low-sulphur fuel solutions as others go down the scrubber route – at least for the moment.

In the same way, ports have looked at the impact of scrubbers used in their waters and some have indicated that since the new sulphur cap rules were applied they would not accept the use of scrubbers in their waters, most notably the discharge of washwater from scrubbers.

North P&I Club has put together a useful roundup of different ports’ approaches to the issue of scrubbers, outlining some of the ports where the use of scrubbers is banned, or certain conditions need to be applied to use them.

The club has produced a table outlining the different approaches followed by ports as far as the use of scrubbers is concerned.

This list includes whether open-loop ECGS discharge is allowed, what regulations have been introduced to control their use and also whether such regulations have been suspended at any point.

In Australia, for example, the club advises that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is “currently investigating the potential impacts of EGCS washwater discharges on Australian port environments and has commissioned a study to assess the potential cumulative impacts of washwater discharges from open-loop EGCS over time”.

Here, the system must be approved by the ship’s flag state administration or a recognised organisation appointed by the flag state, as well as being operated in accordance with IMO requirements.

The master, owner or operator of a ship using a scrubber system has to notify AMSA before the first arrival of the ship in an Australian port after the system has been installed and approved. Washwater testing needs to be undertaken when the system

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is installed and every 12 months thereafter for a minimum of two years.

The club advice also outlines specific approaches taken by individual ports and includes advice by the Clean Shipping Alliance on individual ports and waterways. Use of open loop scrubbers is banned, for example, in the Suez Canal.

To view the table, visit nepia.com

“Co-operation is essential if we are to implement the solutions needed to succeed with the green shift that is underway”

SOLSTAD SIGNS UP

As offshore fleets seek to reduce their carbon footprint, Solstad Offshore has signed an agreement with technology group Wärtsilä to collaborate on achieving a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.

The agreement aims to identify, evaluate and implement solutions that will increase fuel efficiency and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Solstad’s offshore vessels. Each vessel will be assessed for appropriate solutions, possible operational improvements and life extension considerations. The company hopes to reach full carbon neutrality by 2050.

“Co-operation is essential if we are to implement the solutions needed to succeed with the green shift that is underway,” says Tor Inge Dale, head of sustainability at Solstad Offshore.

“For this reason, we at Solstad are

partnering with forward-looking companies such as Wärtsilä that have the expertise, experience and innovative technologies required.”

Solstad has been working on reducing emissions for a number of years and, consequently, average fuel consumption per vessel has been reduced by more than 20%. The further reduction to 50% is expected to be reached by optimising energy efficiencies and by retrofitting the vessels to operate with alternative fuels such as hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol.

Additionally, new ship designs must be capable of offering low or zero emissions from the outset.

Wartsila has also secured a new agreement for its exhaust gas cleaning systems to be installed on two newbuild 218m roll-on/roll-off passenger vessels at Guangzhou Shipyard International in China.

The contract, which was signed in February 2022, will see Wärtsilä fit and commission two 25-megawatt V-SOx hybrid scrubber systems, which can run in both open-and-closed loop configurations, on each vessel.

The order comes as a result of Wärtsilä’s long-term commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, where the organisation has regional resources to enable it to provide sales, support and lifecycle services.

By choosing to install Wärtsilä’s exhaust gas abatement technology, the RoPax vessels will immediately comply with the 0.5% Global Sulphur

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Cap and will also be futureproofed against impending regulatory change.

This is because Wärtsilä’s modular, lifecycle technologies can be upgraded to tackle other pollutants, including Nitrogen Oxide, Particulate Matter and Carbon Dioxide.

Wang Bin, area sales manager at Wärtsilä Exhaust Treatment in China, said: “We are very excited to start 2022 with this order of SOx scrubbers onboard two RoPax vessels being built by our partners at GSI. This agreement not only proves our longterm partnership with GSI, but also demonstrates the commercial and technical viability of scrubbers in shipping’s complex decarbonisation landscape.”

“Our technology completely fulfils technical requirements for newbuilds, ensures compliance with current regulation, and is also the first building block for future sustainability innovation. We look forward to working with GSI on this collaboration and others in our future together.”

Jiang Lei, purchasing manager at GSI, said: “It is a real pleasure for us to be working with Wärtsilä to fulfil this latest order on two RoPax vessels.

We recognise the long-term potential of scrubbers for solving many crucial challenges in the shipping industry, and we are proud to carry out installations at our development-oriented shipyard.”

Wärtsilä and GSI will complete the delivery and installation of the four scrubber systems by the end of 2023 for both vessels.

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COMPANY PROFILE

PROTEA: MEETING MONITORING CHALLENGES This is a demonstration of collaboration between uses and manufacture, enabling state of the art developments to meet the requirements of a critical industrial sector to meet environmental goals.

Protea, among its extensive advanced analyser range manufacture a marine in-situ continuous emission analyser. The analyser, designated the P2000, is a variant of an analyser previously manufactured by Procal Kittiwake.

This unique approach to monitoring exhaust emissions is an ideal solution for the marine industry to enable compliance with International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations. The P2000 in-situ analyser is fitted directly to the exhaust with the gas monitored within the exhaust duct.

Unlike extractive systems, the in-situ technique does not require sample preparation components.

Extractive monitoring systems require the sample to be transported

to an analyser cabinet employing pumps, filters, heated lines and other sample conditioning components, all of which necessitate inclusion in a maintenance regime.

The P2000 analyser is certified by several classification societies as an analyser system suitable to monitor sulphur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) and report the SO2:CO2 ratio.

The P2000 was developed from a successful land-based analyser and was first installed on early exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) in 2010.

Since then, several hundred P2000 have been installed on several classes of vessels, both on scrubbed and unscrubbed applications.

The installed base of in-situ analysers are photometers using the absorption of selected infrared wavelengths to determine the concentrations of both CO2 and SO2.

The analyser is zero based, therefore every 12 hours the system

automatically switches in instrument air, which forces out the exhaust gas from the probe enabling the analyser to verify zero. In the same way, manually or automatically certified test gas can be introduced, allowing a span check (see image, below right).

Protea took over the manufacture of the Kittiwake Procal analyser range, including the successful P2000 used in both land-based and marine applications.

FINDING SOLUTIONS

In the process of evaluating the performance of the installed base, it was determined that the P2000 was an ideal solution for the majority of landbased applications.

However, for marine installations it was decided that the instrument would benefit from a series of product improvements. Working with existing users and marine industry specialists, three main areas were identified that would benefit from improvements.

This unique approach to monitoring exhaust emissions monitoring is an ideal solution for the marine industry to enable compliance with IMO regulations

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These were: 1. Capability of monitoring lower levels of SO2 in a background of relatively high water vapour.

2. Capability of monitoring postscrubber with liquid phase water vapour carry over.

3. Enhanced support to enable vessel engineers to identify and rectify performance issues.

Taking each point in turn, the solutions to the identified improvements were as follows: 1. The P2000 is an infra-red analyser, monitors SO2 in a region of infrared where there is interference from water vapour in many marine applications involving monitoring post-wet scrubber, and inevitably the water vapour is high and variable. CO2 is monitored in a part of the infra-red spectrum unaffected by water vapour.

As part of the maintenance procedure for the existing installed base of P2000, the visiting service engineer is required to verify that the analyser monitored concentration are unaffected by water vapour. To achieve this the engineer is required to use a sophisticated water vapour generator, which inevitably adds time and expense to a routine service visit.

Protea’s solution: develop a highbred UV/IR analyser to monitor the SO2 using ultra violet (UV), which is unaffected by water vapour. CO2 cannot be monitored in the UV and therefore is still monitored in the infra-red.

2. The analyser probe is mounted within the duct and therefore subject to the emission flow, which if mounted post-scrubber in certain designs of EGCS liquid water droplets were present. This caused the probe to be “chilled”, resulting in condensation forming and errors in the monitored concentrations.

Protea’s solution: design an enhanced analyser probe with a thermal barrier, which increases the probe temperature thus ensuring any liquid water is vaporised before coming in contact with the system insitu optics.

3. Protea’s solution: develop an integrated software application that automatically runs a routine that collects data under all the phases of operation these include zero (instrument air), certified test gas and process.

The data is collected in a file, which is then e-mailed to Protea support for analysis, findings including any remedial actions are then reported back to the vessels chief engineer.

This approach has been invaluable during the current pandemic, which has enable Protea to support installed systems remotely.

ENHANCED SUPPORT

Protea operates an extensive worldwide network of factory trained sales and service partners strategically located to support the marine industry

P2000 used in both land based and marine applications

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In addition to acquiring the Procal Kittiwake products, Protea has also taken over the support of the installed base of marine installations. Protea is the only organisation able to support the Procal Kittiwake P2000 installed instruments with marine clarification society certified spares.

Protea has also entered into contracts to update existing installations to the latest standard with the current uses of the P2000 analysers. This includes system software upgrades, enabling the operator to take advantage of the remote diagnostic capability of Protea’s customer support team.

In addition, Protea operates an extensive worldwide network of factory trained sales and service partners strategically located to support the marine industry.

Protea would like to invite all users of the Parker Kittiwake Procal P2000 to contact us regarding ongoing support and the cost-effective upgrade of their current exhaust emission monitoring analysers.

Protea would also like to thank and recognise the input from our valued marine engineers for their undoubted expertise in improving our products for installation in challenging applications.

For more information, visit: protea.ltd.uk

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COMPANY PROFILE

CYGNUS: SUSTAINING A RENEWABLE WORLD Even green technology falls victim to corrosion. As we strive to increase our use of renewable technologies, we are yet to free ourselves from the clutches of this issue, particularly at sea.

Although the use of scrubber systems and wind turbines is booming, both are susceptible to corrosion.

BEST PROTECTION

Water ingress into a ship’s engine room is just one example of the type of catastrophic incident that can occur when corrosion has compromised a scrubber’s structural integrity.

Aggravated by the high temperatures of exhaust gases, acidic, corrosive

washwater causes extremely severe corrosion. As a result, classification societies such as DNV-GL require wall thickness measurements for the SOx scrubber overboard distance piece in annual class surveys.

Early, preventative maintenance provides the best protection against costly repairs, focusing on the overboard pipe and its surrounding area, including the external hull. For this, many companies worldwide choose Cygnus – a recognised brand for 40 years in the marine industry, renowned for its extremely reliable and easy-to-use ultrasonic testing equipment!

Cygnus 1 Intrinsically Safe gauge is the only one of its kind in the world certified to Class 1, Div 1 (“Zone 0”) for ATEX, IECEx and CSA-US, offering safe operations in hazardous, potentially explosive atmospheres. It is particularly crucial when working on vessels transporting flammable cargoes. This heavy-duty device is water-resistant to IP65 and uses the Cygnus-pioneered multipleecho technique.

Cygnus’ multiple-echo technique, specified by class societies, reads through coatings, negating the need to remove the expensive protective coatings or epoxy that safeguard

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against external scrubber corrosion.

For heavily corroded metals with thin or missing coating, Cygnus Plus gauges offer echo-echo and singleecho measuring modes, along with its Measurement Stability Indicator (MSI™) for quick, reliable readings.

Cygnus 4+ thickness gauge is a fantastic little all-rounder. Small but rugged, this wrist-wearable gauge features an A-scan display, datalogging and auto log for hassle-free recording, post-reporting and analysis, making wall-thinning and corrosion easy to monitor over time and helping to address issues early.

“Cygnus gauges work quickly and efficiently with easy-to-use functionality – a critical solution to the vicious cycle of extensive checklists that are essential to the safety of wind turbines, time-constrained, high-pressure schedules, and specialist engineers who are in short supply and high demand”

COASTAL CORROSION

Whether offshore or onshore, corrosion is known as one of the primary mechanisms degrading the structural integrity and shortening the lifespan of wind turbines. It reduces the thickness of the structure, sometimes at an alarming rate, encouraging cracks and buckling that can be irreparable.

Most turbines are situated in coastal areas, where harsh winds, rain, salty air and frost rust and erode the leading-edge blade tip, an imbalance that can undermine the shaft and gearbox.

Those offshore also battle against the sea, different sections of the turbine suffering different challenges.

While UV radiation and humidity above the surface and the growth of micro-organisms below are damaging, the most vulnerable of these sections is the “splash zone” (where the turbine meets the water’s surface). Constant abrasive wave action, intensified by the seawater’s temperature, chlorinity and salinity, is the perfect recipe for extreme corrosion.

So how significant is the impact on the wind power industry? Soaring demand has increased pressure to minimise turbine downtime, before considering the loss of revenue and productivity, and high emergency repair rates, which result in a severely costly ordeal. The by-products of corrosion are costly to the environment, too.

As always, prevention is key.

Ultrasonic thickness gauging is a simple, inexpensive and reliable method for regular maintenance surveys. Cygnus gauges work quickly and efficiently with easy-to-use functionality – a critical solution to the vicious cycle of extensive checklists that are essential to the safety of wind turbines, time-constrained, highpressure schedules, and specialist engineers who are in short supply and high demand.

Working at great heights and in tight spaces comes with the territory of turbine maintenance. Cygnus MK5 surface range offers lightweight, compact and highly portable equipment that is shatter-proof and waterresistant (IP67) if dropped. The

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option of twin-crystal and right-angle probes allow more flexibility for tight, awkward spaces.

Cygnus’ multiple-echo technique and Measurement Stability Indicator (MSI™) confirm accurate measurements, eliminating hesitancy and precious time between measurements. Although coatings are widely used on turbines to ensure an adequate lifespan, inspection is still recommended considering potential coating failures and defects.

Cygnus gauges can measure metal thickness without the need to remove anti-corrosive coatings, saving time and money.

Cygnus 4+ and 6+ Pro Ultrasonic Thickness Gauges are the most advanced models of Cygnus’ surface corrosion gauges, both ideal for this application.

The highly intuitive Cygnus 6+ boasts an array of excellent features, including three versatile measuring modes, live A-scan and B-scan displays, and the radial points function for further investigation on heavily corroded areas. The A-Scan display allows users to visually verify the back-wall echo signals and adjust the gain manually where necessary.

What’s more, the 6+ has a comprehensive data-logging feature that records your measurements for hassle-free reporting and post-analysis.

For more information, contact: Tel: +44 (0) 1305 265533 Email: sales@cygnus-instruments.com cygnus-instruments.com Quote CSI22 for 10% off a gauge

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EMISSIONS: VIEWPOINT

As every segment of the industry seeks to manage emissions output, one question is how data and artificial intelligence can be harnessed to improve sustainability and governance in ports.

David Yeo of Innovez One considers the options of a digital approach to port sustainability

SMART SOLUTIONS

David Yeo Chief Executive and Founder, Innovez One

Out of sight, but no longer out of mind – as global supply chains strive to decarbonise, ports are under more scrutiny than ever before. To address the formidable challenge of curbing their own emissions and helping visiting ships reduce theirs, ports need a helping hand from deep tech, algorithms and artificial intelligence.

In March 2021, the world awakened to the vital importance of shipping in a dramatic way, when a giant cargo ship stranded in the Suez Canal threatened to bring much of international trade to a halt.

Since then, supply chains have remained steadily in the global spotlight due to ongoing congestion that continues to cause severe backlogs and delays for retailers and manufacturers around the world. For customers, governments and business leaders, shortages and empty shelves are a stark reminder of the importance of shipping, which transports 90% of the world’s trade.

In the past few months, shipping and

ports have also been subjected to greater attention and scrutiny for the role they can play in helping the world achieve its decarbonisation ambitions. The latest United Nations’ climate change conference (COP26) was a pivotal moment for maritime transport, which was an integral part of climate talks for the first time ever. More than 130 countries have now set or are considering a target of reducing emissions to net zero by mid-century – and as national governments are stepping up with more ambitious targets on climate change, there is also a growing recognition that maritime transport, including ports, must be part of the solution.

SUSTAINABLE SHIPPING RELIES ON SMART PORTS

One of the main maritime outcomes of COP26 was the Clydebank Declaration for clean shipping corridors, in which more than 20 countries, including the US, Japan, Australia and Canada, pledged to develop zero-emission shipping routes between selected port hubs in the next decade. This

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new global network for sustainable shipping will inevitably rely on smart, green ports capable of delivering the necessary infrastructure and efficiency to achieve net zero themselves, and to put the right measures in place to help their visiting ships minimise their emissions. It provides an early glimpse into the cleaner supply chains of the future – and just how interdependent and connected they will have to be to achieve their goals.

For the visionary ports that will successfully reinvent themselves as green ports, this is a formidable opportunity to develop competitiveness and carve out a privileged place for themselves in the supply chains of the future. But for those who fail to complete this vital transition, there is a real risk of falling behind and being unable to deliver efficiency and sustainability to the level that will be expected by their customers, regulators and investors in the near future. A key factor that will make the difference between success and failure in this upcoming playing field is the willingness to embrace digitalisation today.

USING DATA TO REDUCE PORT EMISSIONS

Reducing the amount of carbon emitted in and by ports is no easy task. Ports are more than just places where goods are loaded and unloaded. They are complex ecosystems of their own, with numerous moving pieces such as pilots, tugs, trucks and service boats that are deployed as vessels arrive or

depart. The level of greenhouse gas emissions from these service fleets is intrinsically linked to how efficiently they are organised.

This is where digitalisation can make a tremendous difference, by managing all the micro details that are necessary to optimise all port resources, including pilot and tug operations. For example, our MarineM platform uses artificial intelligence to optimise planning and resource allocation, automate scheduling, eliminate unnecessary journeys and curb the overall mileage by these vessels. To achieve all this, we use historical and real-time data to ensure we make the best possible use of each asset to deliver optimal results, while saving time and reducing fuel consumption to a minimum. This is having a direct impact on emissions from these fleets, which are cut by an average of 20%.

Despite the potential of digitalisation, the majority of ports still manage these operations through manual processes, spreadsheets and whiteboards, which inevitably leads to inefficiencies that inflate fuel consumption and emissions.

In fact, of the 4,900 ports in the world, we estimate that 80% are still missing out on the benefits of digitalisation, especially smaller and medium-sized ports. This means there is a huge untapped potential to reduce emissions from ports, by digitalising operations through affordable, turn-key digital technology that is already available.

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ENABLING GREENER PORT VISITS

The impact of AI-driven optimisation solutions does not stop there.

By optimising their pilot and tug operations, ports do not only curb their own emissions – they also create the efficient and flexible environment that will enable visiting ships to reduce theirs in the critical “first and last mile” of their journey at sea.

Indeed, emissions from visiting ships directly correlate with the amount of time that they have to queue outside ports, with their engines on. This, in turn, depends on whether everything is in place to welcome a vessel when it arrives. In other words, by ensuring that all marine services are in the right place at the right time, ports will help visiting ships reduce idle time, and therefore the amount of fuel they burn unnecessarily.

This equation is more complex than it seems, given the sheer number of variables that must be considered: pilots must be assigned to specific vessel types and sizes depending on their licence, tugboats must be in sufficient numbers for the job, and shuttles must be planned to take the pilots to the correct boarding grounds. A problem or delay in any of these steps can lead to a domino effect that will increase waiting times, fuel consumption and emissions.

Aligning so many complex moving pieces is akin to solving multiple Rubik’s cubes simultaneously – which is something artificial intelligence is particularly good at.

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EMISSIONS: VIEWPOINT

Artificial intelligence can “learn” from historical data to predict the duration of each job, taking into account variables such as weather conditions, vessel type and the level of services required. The algorithm then assigns people and assets in the most efficient way possible to ensure all the moving pieces fall into place seamlessly.

The results speak for themselves: when we implemented digital solutions in the Indonesian port of Tanjung Priok, average waiting times for marine services dropped from 2.4 hours to around 30.5 minutes. This saves time and fuel for visiting ships, but also means cleaner air for the people working in ports and the communities around them.

It is true that the current congestion crisis has deeper roots and digitising port services will not solve all its underlying causes. However, local transformations will be the building blocks of a truly global network of smart ports, where critical information flows seamlessly to improve efficiency, tackle congestion and curb emissions.

This, in turn, has the potential to reduce the need for vessels to “rush to wait” – sailing fast across the ocean to meet an arrival time for a berth that may not be free. Given the exponential relationship between speed and emissions, access to this information when planning could drastically reduce emissions.

CUTTING CONGESTION TO CURB EMISSIONS

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is not the end of the sustainability journey for the ports and shipping sectors. Across the globe, political leaders, consumers and investors are recognising that sustainable development is multifaceted and requires progress on several streams, including environmental, social and governance (ESG). In tangible terms, this means that stakeholders across supply chains, from factories to ships and ports, are under growing pressure to demonstrate ESG credentials to secure contracts and funding. This opportunity is one that ports must seize as a strategic priority.

Good governance and transparency go hand in hand – and data is an

Critically, AI-powered algorithms can reallocate resources instantly if a vessel’s ETA changes, giving it the flexibility needed to respond to problems or delays elsewhere in the supply chain.

This increased resilience becomes more important than ever in the current context of unprecedented congestion in ports worldwide, as any increase in congestion inevitably leads to a spike in emissions. According to a study by Singapore’s Nanyang Technological university, emissions have doubled in the ports of Singapore and Los Angeles during the pandemic, as a direct result of congestion.

DATA AND SOCIAL GOVERNANCE

essential foundation. Only by having access to comprehensive, reliable data can ports demonstrate their compliance with regulation and demonstrate that they behave as good “corporate citizens”, having a positive impact on the environment and societies in which they evolve.

Replacing paper and whiteboards with digitalised processes leads to reliable records that facilitate audits and accountability. Moreover, by gathering data on the operations of their fleets at a granular level, managers of ports and service providers can more easily detect any potential irregularities.

Digital solutions also play a key role to protect the safety of employees, through incident reporting tools and platforms that collate information and can highlight trends and problematic areas.

The scale of the challenge faced by ports is hard to overstate: in one strike, they are asked to deliver more efficiency to fight congestion, and more sustainability for their local communities and the planet as a whole. The world will be watching the sectors’ next moves closely, but ports are not alone – their dedication to doing the right thing can and should be supplemented by deep tech and artificial intelligence.

Through digitalisation, stakeholders in the maritime value chain already have the ace card that will enable a successful transition towards sustainability.

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

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EMISSIONS: NEWS

Rotterdam faces up to a report that finds it the most polluting port in Europe, while Maersk supplies innovative charging points for idle ships

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT The European NGO Transport & Environment has conducted a study of maritime-related CO2 emissions in European seaports. The report states that the port of Rotterdam is the most polluting in Europe, as shipping traffic to and from Rotterdam and the handling of vessels in the port produce 13.7m tonnes of CO2 emissions. The port has responded to the report.

With nearly 30,000 sea-going vessels per year, Rotterdam is by far the largest port in Europe and therefore also has the highest shipping-related CO2 emissions.

This conclusion by Transport & Environment comes as no surprise to the Port of Rotterdam Authority.

The Port Authority underlines the necessity for the shipping industry – like the rest of society – to take significant steps to limit climate change. This is not a simple matter because, as yet, hardly any clean fuels are available that can replace polluting fuels and ships have to be adapted to them.

Where possible, the Port Authority facilitates the development and use of alternative

fuels, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) and bioethanol.

In other areas, too, the Port Authority is actively working on making shipping more sustainable, for example by building shore power installations and running inland shipping vessels on batteries.

Together with all the players in the port industrial complex, the Port Authority’s ambition is to accelerate sustainability where possible and the necessary steps have been, and are being, taken. It is working hard to ensure the port is carbon-neutral by 2050.

This means that significant steps must also be taken in making the port industrial complex more sustainable and in this, the Port Authority has big ambitions. The Porthos project, for example, involves CO2 capture and storage. The use of green hydrogen in industry and the production of biofuels are in full swing. Many companies are committed to minimising emissions and even to emission-free terminals.

Allard Castelein, CEO of the Port of Rotterdam Authority, says: “We realise

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EMISSIONS: NEWS

that the port of Rotterdam, being the largest port, has the highest emissions of European seaports. In 2018, we presented our own research into the level of emissions from the logistics chains via Rotterdam and how they can be reduced to zero.

Since then, we have been focusing, together with other parties, on targeted projects to reduce emissions.

“We are aware that we can and must make an impact in the port of Rotterdam and be able to make a substantial contribution to the established climate targets. It goes without saying that we feel responsible and assume responsibility.”

MAERSK CHARGES UP

Shipping group Maersk plans to install hundreds of offshore charging stations around the world to allow vessels to power themselves with electricity instead of fossil fuels while waiting outside ports. The aim is to limit carbon emissions and cut air pollution from approximately 3,500 ships idle in ports worldwide.

Congestion and bottlenecks at major ports such as Shanghai, Rotterdam or Los Angeles during the pandemic due to lack of labour and growing import demand has resulted

“We know that air pollution is a big problem at ports near urban areas and these buoys will allow ships to turn off their engines.

Our ambition is that ships should use green power instead of fossil fuels while laying idle at ports”

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in greater emissions as ships wait to discharge cargo.

Stillstrom, a new company owned

by Maersk’s offshore marine service division, has developed technology that will allow vessels to charge while moored to a buoy connected to land via a transmission line.

The group aims to install buoys at up 100 ports by 2028, which the company says will cut carbon emissions by 5m tonnes a year while reducing air and noise pollution.

“We know that air pollution is a big problem at ports near urban areas and these buoys will allow ships to turn off their engines,” Stillstrom manager Sebastian Klasterer Toft told Reuters.

“Our ambition is that ships should use green power instead of fossil fuels while laying idle at ports.”

The first such buoy operating at commercial scale will be installed between July and September this year at an offshore wind farm operated

by Orsted.

Coaster vessels consume three to five tonnes of shipping fuel a day while idle, and the largest commercial vessels such as container ships consume up to 10 tonnes, according to Maersk.

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COMPANY PROFILE

ISLE OF MAN SHIP REGISTRY: A TRUE PIONEER For an island in the middle of the Irish Sea, just 572km2 in area, the Isle of Man is a major presence in global shipping.

The Isle of Man Ship Registry (IOMSR) accounts for more than half the tonnage sailing under the Red Ensign Group and is ranked 17 in the world by Clarkson Research, just after Italy in tonnage terms – at around 15m – and some way ahead of South Korea and the USA. Douglas, the island’s capital, is home port to around the same number of

gas tankers and bulk carriers as are listed on the Norwegian International Ship Register. The registry currently has a total of 138 oil, gas and chemical tankers alone – amounting to 5.35m GT. Neither part of the UK nor a member of the EU, IOMSR offers high quality services at competitive rates, without application of any tonnage tax. As a self-governing British Crown Dependency, ships registered here can fly the Red Ensign and can rely on British Royal Navy support anytime, anywhere in the world.

Although the registry’s client base is traditionally European – with Greek owners an important contingent – about two-thirds of Isle of Man tonnage is now managed from Asia, and that is rising.

The IOMSR director Cameron Mitchell is leading the drive to expand flag registrations across Asia, which includes appointing Jon Kingdon – a well-known naval architect and Mandarin speaker – as its first permanent Chinese representative in Shanghai.

The registry has a network of overseas representatives in Greece, Japan and Singapore. Mitchell highlights its “pedigree” as one of the world’s best-performing flag states.

The registry has held top spot on the Paris MoU Port State Control whitelist and is firmly on the whitelist in the Tokyo MoU rankings. It is also one of the high-performing flags on the US Coast Guard’s Qualship 21 scheme.

The IOMSR was the first flag state to join the Getting to Zero coalition, an alliance of more than 120 organisations from the maritime, energy, infrastructure and finance sectors working towards decarbonising the international maritime shipping sector.

“As a self-governing British Crown Dependency, ships registered here can rely on British Royal Navy support anytime, anywhere”

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COMPANY PROFILE

CREW MATTERS

In another pioneering move, the IOMSR has launched the first seafarer welfare app, in recognition of the challenges facing crew members spending months at sea.

‘Crew Matters’ has many features – such as welfare support, physical and mental wellbeing classes, and educational training – but a key one provides social activities, such as live gym workouts, to get seafarers interacting more on-board to combat isolation, which can so easily turn into full-scale depression.

Seafarers can record shift patterns, port calls and sea service records, and if they feel stressed or unwell, there is a live “SOS“ function giving immediate access to the “Seafarers Help Live Chat”, free, confidential and available 24/7.

Mitchell says: “The feedback from shipowners, clients and non-clients, about ‘Crew Matters’ is really positive.

Owners want to find new and better ways to help and protect seafarers and want to embrace digital innovation. We hope this app will be a step forward for the industry and make a positive difference to many thousands of seafarers sailing under the Isle of Man flag, as well as acting as an inspiration for other organisations looking to support seafarers around the world.”

DIGITAL PIONEER

The IOSMR is also leading digital innovation. It was one of the first flag states to offer digital certificates and last year conducted the world’s first remote annual survey with DNV as the covid-19 pandemic broke.

The survey was conducted on an IOM-registered bulk carrier anchored off Port Hedland, Australia, with IOMSR monitoring live interactive video streaming from nearly 14,000km away.

Mitchell says: “There will be older ships and those with issues where we will still want to go onboard and, of course, we reserve the right to insist on an in-person inspection if we feel it is necessary. But remote general inspections are here to stay.

“Preparation is critical.

Documentation reviewed in advance and a clearly communicated plan for how the survey will be carried out. As there are limitations in using a camera feed, good communication is key, as it is important to go through the process methodically, so nothing is missed.”

AMBITIOUS TARGETS

In another recent milestone, the IOMSR was the first flag to issue acceptance of a modification for a very large gas carrier to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a greener fuel for Oslolisted shipping company BW LPG. The innovation, which saw the IOMSR present the paperwork for approval to the International Maritime Organisation, paves the way for ships to be retrofitted to run on LPG. In time this could help align fleets more closely to the International Maritime Organization’s targets to halve greenhouse gas emissions from ships by 2050, compared with 2008 levels.

The IOMSR is working on the project with partners Wartsila Gas Solutions, MAN Energy Solutions and DNV to retrofit 15 BW LPG vessels, with 12 vessels completed in December 2021, three more on course to be completed by 1 April 2022.

For more information, visit: iomshipregistry.com

“Owners want to find new and better ways to help and protect seafarers. We hope this app will be a step forward for the industry”

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REGULATIONS

New guidance from the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency gives greater protection to seafarers, while that from the Korean Register is looking at noise abatement in the oceans

PUTTING SAFETY FIRST Seafarers will be better protected as new UK rules come into force to tighten up safety for those who work in enclosed spaces on board vessels, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) says.

The updated legislation goes further than that currently required under international maritime law and is part of the ongoing commitment by the UK to seafarer welfare, according to the MCA. Enclosed spaces include chain lockers, cargo holds, duct keels and water tanks – or any area that has been left closed for any length of time without ventilation.

Six people have died over a 10-year period from 2009 to 2019 in UK ports while working in such spaces, which has led to this legislation being introduced. Although carrying out assignments in enclosed spaces is a necessary part of working on ships, the MCA is committed to reducing the risks and will continue to review how best to protect people in those environments.

The changes will replace previous legislation, requiring ships to protect

workers from the risks of entry into enclosed spaces through measures such as regular safety drills and providing atmosphere testing equipment.

Given the serious risk to seafarers’ health and safety, the MCA has also extended the new measures to a wider range of vessels than just those covered by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). Fishing vessels will now also be required to put in place safe systems of work for enclosed space entry.

The regulations come into force for vessels which come under SOLAS on 14 May 2022 while for all others it will apply from 14 May 2023. The dates have been chosen to give the ships for which the regulations are new the time to become compliant.

Katy Ware, director of maritime services comments: “We remain committed to protecting the safety of those who spend their lives working at sea. There is a serious risk to seafarers’ health and safety by going into these enclosed spaces, even though it is sometimes a necessary part of their work

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REGULATIONS

and we want to do all we can to reduce the risks.

“The risks from working in enclosed spaces are well known across the shipping world and all of us know that more needs to be done to reduce the number of fatalities. These regulations will replace and extend current legislation which will go right across the merchant sector.”

The MCA has also published MGN 659 (M+F) Entry into Enclosed Spaces, which further explains the requirements of the regulations, as well as publishing leaflets and posters to raise awareness of safe procedures for enclosed space entry.

QUIETENING THE NOISE

The Korean Register (KR) has developed new Guidance for Underwater Radiated Noise to help protect marine ecosystems by reducing noise from ships.

As ships’ size and speed increases to handle high volumes of seaborne trade so underwater radiated noise is becoming a more serious issue, causing increasing disruption to the

marine ecosystem. The International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee is discussing measures to mitigate this growing challenge.

As a result, new regulations are expected shortly, which will determine sensitive areas to noise, where ships calling in that area will be required to meet appropriate standards for underwater radiated noise.

The maritime industry is also focused on developing core technologies to address the issue as environmental regulations are tightened, as part of the overall paradigm shift to more eco-friendly ships.

In support of this industry move, KR has developed a class notation for underwater radiated noise and guidance which is based on ISO 17208 (International standard of quantities and procedures for description and measurement of underwater sound from ships). The guidance covers the noise standard for two operating conditions: normal operation (transit) and quiet operation (quiet).

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The class notation is given in the form of URN-T(20), which indicates that when a ship operates at a speed equivalent to 20 knots in still water, it meets the transit criteria for underwater radiated noise. URN is an abbreviation for underwater radiated noise.

A KR official says: “Several countries and ports have already introduced regulations relating to underwater radiated noise, and some ports, such as the Port of Vancouver, are offering discounts on port user fees for vessels that meet the standards.

“If our customers’ vessels have obtained KR’s class notation for underwater radiated noise, they will also be able to benefit from these advantages while reducing their impact on the maritime environment.”

KR has further plans in development to actively support its customers’ compliance with regulations on underwater radiated noise, including technical services that will enable customers to implement low-noise ship technology.

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INDUSTRY COLLABORATION

International Maritime Organization (IMO) Secretary-General Kitack Lim emphasised the importance of across the board collaboration to meet emissions targets at the One Ocean Summit - Greening Maritime Corridors Forum in France recently.

“Shipping is on the cusp of an immense transition to meet the demands for sustainable transport and to address climate change by cutting emissions. IMO adopted the first mandatory global measures to improve ships’ energy efficiency more than a decade ago and we have been strengthening those requirements, recognising the global imperative to do more,” Lim told delegates.

Despite the challenges of covid-19 and remote meetings, measures for the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have been adopted and will ensure the achievement of the 2030 levels of ambition set out in the Initial IMO GHG Strategy, he said, paying tribute to France’s contribution to efforts.

“France played a key role facilitating a constructive outcome particularly in the development of the short-term GHG reduction measures, adopted in 2021.

“This resulted in a comprehensive set of amendments to MARPOL Annex VI, which provide important building blocks for IMO’s future mid-term GHG measures.”

Lim also highlighted the ongoing support from the European Commission to the IMO, towards the regulation of shipping. “I invite the Commission and EU member states to continue to share knowledge and expertise, particularly as IMO member states work towards the upgrade of the Initial IMO GHG Strategy.”

The strengthened revised IMO GHG strategy is set to be adopted in 2023. “This essential work must be completed, to set the path for the decarbonisation of the shipping industry in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement of 2015 and with a view to the Glasgow Climate Pact adopted at COP 26 – which clearly underscores the need for accelerated action in this critical decade.

“Without a doubt, achieving decarbonisation ambitions in the shipping sector will rely on a smooth

REGULATIONS

transition to alternative low- and zerocarbon marine fuels.

“I am encouraged to see many initiatives and projects worldwide on alternative low- and zero- carbon fuels.

Early movers, including prominent French ship owners and other maritime stakeholders in France, are already in the process of ordering, building and retrofitting ships using low/zero carbon fuels.”

He added that IMO is supporting efforts by working on a global regulatory framework that addresses both the safety requirements for these future marine fuels as well as developing new and innovative mechanisms that can incentivise the uptake of low-carbon fuels.

“As shipping makes the transition, it is important to ensure that the journey is inclusive and global” The transition cuts across all aspects of shipping – from the supply and use of fuels, to safety matters, port operations and training of seafarers.

The trials on use of zero-carbon maritime fuels will support a safe transition, he told delegates.

“We need everyone who is involved to be active in sharing their knowledge and experiences, to support the implementation of the strategy and the measures adopted by IMO. “As shipping makes the transition, it is important to ensure that the journey is inclusive and global. To be effective, measures must be adopted and implemented on a global basis.

This will ensure that we avoid market distortions and prevent the creation of loopholes that will defeat our ultimate aim.”

The maritime sector needs to ensure a just and equitable transition that

also recognises the need for skills and technology development in developing countries, he added.

“Shipping is global. Decarbonisation presents an opportunity to get the transition right and encourage all states to be included. This should not be a transition which leaves any one behind. We need to listen and understand the concerns of all states.

“I am pleased to hear about numerous initiatives worldwide which are promoting and trialling greener shipping,” he said.

Initiatives included promoting wind propulsion, biofuels and utilising green ammonia to IMO, so that such developments are incorporated into the framework of the Energy Efficiency Design Index.

“I see great opportunities for developing countries in the production and supply of low-carbon fuels. IMO is supporting developing countries through technical assistance for the implementation of measures and a number of global projects across the globe to support innovation and R&D. No one should be left behind on this journey.”

This year’s World Maritime Theme is “New Technologies for greener shipping”, he added.

“The conservation of the oceans is at the heart of IMO’s endeavours. The work of IMO in preventing pollution from shipping operations, protecting biodiversity and sensitive marine areas, reducing air pollution, reducing marine plastic litter and cutting emissions to support the fight against climate change are all aimed at conserving the oceans.

“The green credentials of the shipping sector must be further enhanced.”

The Glasgow Climate Pact adopted at COP 26 clearly underscores the need for accelerated action in this decade, he added.

“IMO is committed to continue providing the global forum for discussions on the revision of the Strategy and proposals for additional GHG reduction measures, including possible market-based measures, to provide the framework for the maritime industry’s clear response to the urgency expressed at COP 26 by Spring 2023.”

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS: VIEWPOINT

The use of LNG as a bunker fuel it is leading the way forward for meeting 2050 targets and the adoption of new fuels, says Steve Esau of SEA-LNG

LNG LEADS THE WAY TO 205O TARGETS

Steve Esau Chief Operating Officer, SEA-LNG

According to Clarksons, more than 30% of the new build tonnage on the order books is liquefied natural gas-fuelled. So why are shipowners choosing LNG? In addition to its unparalleled local emissions benefits, LNG can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 23% on a well-to-wake basis compared with liquid fossil fuels.

Blending in bioLNG or renewable synthetic LNG can further improve this figure.

BioLNG and synthetic LNG are fully compatible with existing LNG engines and infrastructure and can be transported, bunkered, and stored using technologies currently in use today.

BioLNG is a proven pathway to carbon neutrality as it reuses waste from farming activities, industries, and households to create green fuel. This process can capture methane that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere, resulting in a fuel that is not just potentially net zero in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but one that also has the potential to be net negative in emissions.

When produced from waste streams, bioLNG can support the circular economy and help with yet another global concern: waste management. This gives it an added advantage over many other alternative fuels.

With its many benefits, it is easy to see why production infrastructure for bioLNG is on the rise. The European Commission has invested some €118m into 32 decarbonisation projects, including one involving Bio-LNG Hub Wilp that aims to establish a bioLNG production plant in the Netherlands.

In France, several key energy firms, including CMA CGM and TotalEnergies, have joined forces to embark on bioLNG production project, expanding the potential for increased availability of the fuel. With a strong pipeline of projects, the European Biogas Association predicts production of the fuel in Europe could increase tenfold by 2030.

The mainstream introduction of bioLNG to shipping has already begun. In late 2020,

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS: VIEWPOINT

TotalEnergies bunkered the CMA CGM Jacques Saadé at Rotterdam, and some 13% of the 17,300m3 of LNG supplied was bioLNG. A month later, UECC bunkered the Auto Energy with drop-in bioLNG, while Gasum has bunkered ESL Shipping’s dry bulk carrier Viikki with 100% renewable bioLNG in Finland.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in September 2021 JAX LNG undertook the first bunkering of bioLNG in the US, supplying Tote’s Isla Bella with a bioLNG/LNG blend in Jacksonville, Florida.

Renewable synthetic LNG has also entered the market. In September 2021 Unifeeder, working with MAN Energy Solutions, conducted the world’s first bunkering of carbon-neutral renewable synthetic LNG when it fuelled the ElbBlue in Brunsbüttel, Germany.

And in November CMA CGM and ENGIE signed a wide-ranging partnership aimed at developing renewable synthetic LNG, with several projects already identified in Europe.

Just like other synthetic fuels, such as green ammonia and green methanol, synthetic LNG is made from hydrogen produced from electrolysis using renewable electricity.

Between 70% and 80% of the cost of all of these synthetic fuels is related to the cost of producing the hydrogen feedstock.

However, the fact that renewable synthetic LNG is operationally proven and can be used in existing vessels

and transported, stored and bunkered using existing infrastructure means it is likely to be lower in price than other synthetic fuels.

A 2020 CE Delft study concluded that the potential supply of bioLNG based on sustainable biomass exceeds

“Not only does LNG provide a pathway to decarbonisation in its own right, but it also provides the physical infrastructure and asset base that can be used by other alternative fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia”

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the energy demand from the shipping sector. Supplies of renewable synthetic LNG will be based on the build out of renewable electricity capacity, as is the case with other synthetic fuels.

SUPPORTING CHANGE

There are major technological and regulatory hurdles still to be overcome before ammonia and hydrogen can safely be used as marine fuels, and investment cases will be hindered by safety issues, environmental challenges, and their low energy density.

Rather than holding back the development of these new fuels though, adoption of LNG supports them. Not only does LNG provide a pathway to decarbonisation in its own right, but it also provides the physical infrastructure and asset base that can be used by other alternative fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia; the capacity in shipyards in building vessels propelled by cryogenic/ gaseous fuels; the development and dissemination guidelines and processes for the safe bunkering of these fuels in ports around the world; and, critically, the capacity to train seafarers.

It is clear that energy majors are pushing the benefits of LNG, and their plans should give shipowners confidence in the availability of LNG in the future. For example, Shell and Total are rapidly making LNG available on global trading routes at major ports in Europe, Asia, and North

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America, through major investments in LNG bunkering vessels.

Furthermore, engine manufacturers do not want shipowners to be left with stranded assets as new fuels enter the market. They understand the need for flexibility given that there will be no one-size-fits-all new fuel by 2050.

To that end, Wärtsilä, for example, has announced the development of a cryogenic fuel supply and combustion concept that combines the advantages of Diesel and Otto cycle technology and comes as a modular add-on for existing 2-stroke engines.

The platform will enable the fast and cost-effective conversion of 2-stroke main engines, and the first new fuel to be offered will be LNG. This will be followed by retrofit options for ammonia and methanol, as and when these fuels become commercially available.

As another example, Anglo Belgian Corporation has introduced a multi-fuel engine platform designed to facilitate the transition from conventional fuel to future fuels including biodiesel, LNG, hydrogen, and methanol. The platform is specifically designed to make it financially viable to adapt the same engine to these fuel types.

INCENTIVISING CHANGE

Regulators are well-advanced in mandating change. The EU’s proposed “Fit for 55” package of legislation is broadly aligned with SEA-LNG’s position that goal-based and technology-neutral policies are needed to ensure innovation and a level playing field for all low and zero-carbon marine fuels.

However, there remain wrinkles to be ironed out. While FuelEU Maritime looks at all greenhouse gases and the entire fuel life cycle (well-to-wake) basis, the proposed extension of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to maritime only looks at CO2 and only at emissions during actual combustion (i.e. on a tank-towake basis).

As it stands, FuelEU Maritime is likely to incentivise the uptake of LNG in the short term and bioLNG in the medium term as carbon intensity

ALTERNATIVE FUELS: VIEWPOINT

targets bite. Longer term, we are likely to see increasing demand for zero-emission synthetic fuels such as renewable synthetic LNG, green methanol, green hydrogen, and green ammonia.

Uptake of the different fuels will be driven by operational requirements, safety issues and cost.

SEA-LNG firmly believes the decarbonisation of shipping will require a basket of different fuels and propulsion systems and each should be evaluated on a full GHG lifecycle basis.

Restricting regulatory thinking to tank-to-wake and picking winners, as has been proposed by some in the industry is likely to increase the costs of decarbonisation.

By choosing the LNG pathway, operators can immediately cut carbon emissions, and they will be able to continue operating as normal under the IMO’s Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) system until after 2030.

“By choosing the LNG pathway, operators can immediately cut carbon emissions, and they will be able to continue operating as normal under the IMO’s Carbon Intensity Indicator system until after 2030”

Blending in bioLNG and renewable synthetic LNG will further extend compliance to 2050 and beyond.

LNG can be the difference between having a ‘moderate’ C-rated ship and having a ‘major superior’ A-rated ship on the CII scale, and for every 10% increase in the use of bioLNG or synthetic LNG, a vessel gains two-years of additional compliance.

This means lower ship emissions now and a compliance extension that yields long term competitive advantage.

FUNDING CHANGE

As banks increasingly align with green finance principles, LNG, through its lower CO2 emissions, provides an “extended compliance runway” for Poseidon Principles sustainability linked loans.

Analysis from SEA-LNG demonstrates how a ship running on LNG can benefit from preferable asset financing for up to eight years compared to one running on conventional fuels like high sulphur fuel oil, very low sulphur fuel oil and marine gas oil.

This provides owners of LNGfuelled ships with a strong competitive advantage, including extra time to extend compliance even further through the use of fuel options such as bioLNG or synthetic LNG. At last count, there were 261 LNGfuelled ships sailing, with a further 435 on order. By the end of this year, an estimated 170 ports worldwide will offer LNG bunkering. Clearly, SEA-LNG is not alone in recognising the benefits of LNG. In summary, the choice of an LNG-fuelled propulsion system is unlikely to leave ship owners with stranded assets, as fuel availability is promising for bioLNG and synthetic LNG, and there are many regulatory advantages to LNG, both now and into the future.

Therefore, it is clear that the LNG pathway offers a viable route towards a zero-carbon future.

Crucially, this enables shipping to start the decarbonisation journey now. There is no need to wait a decade or longer for other, untried, and unproven fuels.

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS: NEWS

A new report predicts an alarming shift towards fossil fuel use, while innovations in ammonia and tidal energy give a boost to sustainability

TIME TO CHANGE THE NARRATIVE A quarter of Europe’s shipping will be fossil gas-powered by 2030 as misguided EU sustainability targets encourage an uptake of LNG, a new Transport & Environment (T&E) study shows. This will lock-in fossil fuel use for decades while bringing limited benefits to the climate, says T&E. Delphine Gozillon, sustainable shipping officer at T&E, says: “The shipping industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters and is heavily reliant on fossil fuels. The old narrative of gas as transitional fuel just doesn’t hold. We cannot afford to shift from one fossil fuel to another. It will not get us to zero emissions by 2050 and, by putting more methane into the atmosphere may even fry the planet faster.”

Last year, the European Commission proposed a law requiring ship operators to reduce the lifecycle carbon footprint of the fuels. The EU targets, which are tightened over time, are designed to gradually squeeze out the most polluting oil-powered ships, and, in theory, drive the uptake of sustainable fuels.

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Instead, they will be replaced by fossil liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered ships, which the regulation gives the green light to well into the 2040s. According to the report, with costs far cheaper than genuinely clean alternatives, LNG will make up 23% of the total energy used in EU shipping by 2030, up from 6% today.

As the EU proposal stands, ships will have little or no incentive to switch to more sustainable alternatives such as green hydrogen or hydrogen-based fuels known as “e-fuels”. Currently, there is no mandate for e-fuels, meaning shipowners can rely on fossil LNG and what T&E calls dubious biofuels to meet EU targets into the 2040s.

Delphine Gozillon concludes: “Europe’s policymakers should introduce dedicated quotas and incentives to boost demand for hydrogen-based fuels. Genuinely clean solutions do exist, but currently they are expensive. If we kick start demand now, a green shipping future is possible. Continue to waste precious time on fossil gas and it will start to look impossible.”

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS: NEWS

T&E recommends mandating a 6% target for shipping e-fuels by 2030 as the most straightforward way to ensure supply and demand for sustainable fuels, while providing business predictability to shipowners and fuel suppliers. Without this minimum share of e-fuels and stricter greenhouse gas targets, full decarbonisation by 2050 will likely be out of reach.

The EU’s shipping fuel law – FuelEU Maritime – is currently under discussion in the European Parliament and the Council, with a final text expected in the second half of 2022.

T&E calls on policymakers to adopt key changes to the proposal.

1. T&E’s modelling is based on ship order books for ships until 2023 with future LNG ship sales assumed based on the increase due to fuel oil being no longer compliant with the regulation anymore. LNG is the cheapest among alternative fuels.

2. About 80% (79%) of LNG burned today is burned in an engine (lowpressure 4-stroke) with worse

well-to-wake greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than traditional engines running on dirty fuel oil. If methane’s short-term global warming effects were accounted for, only the lowestmethane slippage engines would comply with FuelEU Maritime’s GHG targets. Estimation of the fuel consumed by LNG-powered ships in the 2020 MRV fleet is based on fleet characteristics data from IHS.

AMMONIA STUDY

DNV has been selected to lead an ammonia bunkering safety study by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation in Singapore.

The pioneering study aims to define a robust set of safety guidelines and operational envelopes that will establish the basis of a regulatory sandbox for ammonia bunkering trials at two local sites.

DNV will team up with Singapore’s leading infrastructure developer Surbana Jurong and the Singapore Maritime Academy. DNV’s work

scope will comprise ammonia demand forecasting, bunkering site recommendations, the development of conceptual designs of bunkering modes like truck to ship or ship to ship, HAZID/HAZOP/QRA studies, as well as drafting of technical and operational guidelines.

While ammonia is one the most promising fuels to decarbonise shipping, DNV research shows that a number of safety gaps hold the potential to disrupt the speed and success of the transition. “The safe handling of ammonia is one such gap which urgently needs to be closed, given the threat it poses to seafarers and ships unless properly managed,” says Knut ØrbeckNilssen, CEO of DNV Maritime.“We are therefore thrilled to partner with Surbana Jurong and the Singapore Maritime Academy on this pioneering initiative, which we hope will lay the foundations for robust ammonia bunkering safety guidelines with industry wide applicability.”

Vessels berthing at Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering hub and busiest container port globally (©Tidal energy investment)

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS: NEWS

In response to the growing industry interest for ammonia fuelled and ammonia ready ship designs, DNV has undertaken many projects in the development of ammonia as a viable future marine fuel.

DNV’s “Fuel ready” notation was launched as an industry first in April 2021 by Höegh Autoliners in its new series of car carriers. The notation verifies that a vessel complies with the safety and operational requirements for future ammonia fuelled operations, and that the main engine can be converted or operate on the fuel.

For shipowners looking to move towards a full zerocarbon fuel option with their next newbuilding, DNV’s new “Gas fuelled ammonia” rules provide a practical path. Further adding to this work, DNV has awarded several Approvals in Principle for ammoniafuelled ship designs, while also co-operating with engine maker MAN Energy Solutions on the safe development of a 2-stroke ammonia engine intended to be market-ready in 2024.

“Next to our broad practical experience, our research detailed in the Ammonia as a marine fuel white paper shows that we are well equipped to undertake this groundbreaking ammonia bunkering study,” comments Cristina Saenz de Santa Maria, DNV Maritime’s regional manager southeast Asia, Pacific and India.

“We welcome that Singapore, as the world’s leading bunkering port, is exploring ammonia as a viable ship fuel and are very happy to be selected to contribute to the pilot. Safety is the prerequisite for the successful and timely introduction of new fuels such as ammonia, hence joint research and development, testing and setting standards is crucial at this point.”

According to its recent Maritime Forecast to 2050, DNV expects there will be demonstration projects for onboard use of ammonia by 2025, paving the way for zero-carbon ships ready for commercial use by 2030.

While the future fuel mix will be broad, DNV predicts that both ammonia and bio-based methanol are the most promising carbon-neutral fuels in the long run.

ENERGY INVESTMENT

Bureau Veritas has welcomed the UK government’s plans to invest in the UK’s tidal energy industry, suggesting that tidal stream electricity has the potential to become one of the most viable and reliable sources of renewable energy in the world.

The government investment is part of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, which invites renewable energy companies from across the UK to bid for a share of £285m of funding for low-carbon technologies.

Launched recently, a total of £20m per year has been ring-fenced for tidal stream projects, which represents the biggest investment in a generation into tidal power.

Hailing the move as a positive opportunity for the marine energy sector, Mauricio Pereira, head of renewable energy at Bureau Veritas, says: “We hope that the investment will build upon the success of the offshore wind sector and provide a viable, and perhaps even stronger, alternative to wind and solar energy generation. Quite simply, tidal stream electricity has the potential to become one of the lead sources of renewable energies in the world. The energy potential of tides can be predicted for years to come with tidal turbines able to harness the energy of high and low tides down to the minute.

“Additional benefits of the investment into tidal stream electricity include the creation of new ‘green’ jobs, and the potential to re-distribute and upskill employees of fossil fuel industries. It also means that by having more options for renewable energy here in the UK, we’re in a much better

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position to move away from fossil fuel reliance; a crucial requirement if we’re to keep 1.5° in reach.

“Despite tidal power being a relatively unknown technology and energy source – and a need for there to be additional studies into understanding the impact tidal turbines may have on the marine environment – the ring-fenced £20m in the CfD Scheme is almost on par with that of floating off-shore wind (£24m), suggesting that the focus to alternative renewable energy sources is well and truly shifting,” he adds.

“The funding made available as part of the CfD Scheme will support in allowing the marine energy sector the opportunity to focus on research, rapid innovation and the acceleration required to meet net zero targets.

“Currently, the cost for tidal power technology is incredibly high, however with the investment the government is committing to – which will drive an increased focus on R&D – there is the potential for costs to drastically reduce as happened with offshore wind; making tidal energy a tangible option for the future.”

CLEAN FUELS

To explain the future fuel options for vessel owners and operators in the international shipping sector, TotalEnergies Marine Fuels has released a new white paper, The Drive for Cleaner Marine Fuels.

This publication offers insight on shipping’s energy transition and decarbonisation journey.

To view the report, visit: marinefuels.totalenergies.com

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS: VIEWPOINT

Multi-fuel systems and hybrid power offer a systems approach to surviving the future fuels transition, as Børge Nogva, President of Høglund Marine Solutions, explains

THE ROAD TO TRANSITION

Børge Nogva President, Høglund Marine Solutions

The decarbonisation treadmill is accelerating for shipowners. With news that the Poseidon Principles will soon look to exceed the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) targets and aim for full net zero (as opposed to the 50% reduction aimed at by the IMO), shipowners are under more pressure than ever to reduce emissions.

At the same time, one of the potentially simplest decarbonisation options for shipowners – that of gradually introducing drop-in sustainable fuels – is being called into question. A recent report from the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative looking at pathways for decarbonisation argues that this strategy will, in the long term, be more expensive than investing in green ammonia and hydrogen, and the uptake of energy efficiency technologies.

This has generated heated debate and it’s unlikely that it’ll be resolved any time soon.

However, the facts on the ground remain unchanged. Shipowners cannot replace their existing fleets overnight. Neither can

they afford to wait for green ammonia and hydrogen to scale up. While these sectors are advancing quickly, they are still a long way away from being able to supply fuels globally. For ships with changing, dynamic operating patterns such as tankers or bulkers, global availability is key.

So, how can owners continue to operate their fleets as efficiently as possible and future-proof themselves in order to thrive in whatever the future fuel landscape ends up looking like?

If they aren’t already, owners and operators should be analysing their energy management strategy as a major priority for their business. Part of this should involve taking a detailed look at the systems on board vessels and ensuring that they are the right tools for the job. A systems focus is essential.

FUTURE-PROOFING FUEL SYSTEMS

Finding the right fuel system option will be a priority for most owners. Seen from this

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ALTERNATIVE FUELS: VIEWPOINT

perspective, retrofits of multi- or dualfuel (MDF) systems (or selecting dualfuel systems for newbuilds) will most likely cover any fuel requirements that the future might bring.

In MDF systems, one fuel system is designed to handle a low vapour pressure combustible (which is liquid at ambient pressures and temperatures), while the other fuel system is designed to handle a cryogenic, pressurised combustible (and possibly toxic) energy carrier, with both feeding into an internal combustion engine.

These systems significantly maximise flexibility as they enable a vessel to handle multiple energy carriers on board, which means that shipowners become less exposed to the risk of investing in a stranded asset.

Rather than having to bet on liquefied natural gas (LNG), ammonia, or methanol today, MDF systems partially eliminate the need for a choice now – at least on the fuel handling side. This increases stability, brings costs down and boosts market resilience in a way that undoubtedly outweighs the

impact of the additional cost of MDF systems installations.

A standard dual fuel system can manage heavy fuel oil (HFO)/diesel and LNG, the diesel fuel handling side can also be converted to handle synthetic or biofuels, including methanol – with relative to minor impact as long as this was considered from the start.

Meanwhile, the other part of the dual fuel system – the one typically handling LNG – can eventually be converted to handle ammonia in the future. We could even go further by applying a liquid air energy storage (LAES) principle in shortrange applications as a low-cost, carbon-free adaptation of the LNG handling system in a potential post-LNG era.

TOUGHENING THE TANKS

Another key consideration for newbuilds is the type of tank necessary to maximise options.

Newbuild buyers hope that paying extra for features such as stronger fuel tanks will lower the cost of converting a ship to ammonia or

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another future fuel in coming years.

While it is unclear how much of a ship’s fuel system will need to be adapted until the engine technology progresses, building a more resilient fuel tank now will definitely be cheaper than replacing a standard LNG tank later.

Certainly, this multi-use solution on a dual-fuel platform – plus a combustion engine – is slightly more complex than a dedicated diesel/ LNG standard, so a marginal cost increase is inevitable.

However, MDF systems would meet the latest classification standards (ie, “ammonia-ready notation”) and allow shipowners to sail confidently ahead into the future.

Hydrogen will place stricter demands on fuel tanks. The question is still open as to whether hydrogen’s small molecules can affect and eventually weaken the properties of the steel when in contact.

Høglund is currently working with steel specialists and tank designer specialists on building a tank that can be used for transporting liquid hydrogen.

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THE CASE FOR GOING HYBRID

The other essential part of the equation is the need to use less fuel overall. Future fuels will be more expensive than current fuels and less energy dense. One of the best tools at our disposal to counter this is hybrid power, which has far greater benefits than simply being a store of energy.

Hybrid power opens a world of opportunities as it shifts away from traditional power systems and disrupts the classic, internal combustion engine (ICE)-based technical paradigm for vessel power management by decoupling the electrical and power systems.

Currently, fossil fuels and oil are inextricably linked with the ICE and this relationship has determined the evolution of shipping technology for more than 100 years. The adoption of hybrid power systems is one of the most significant changes that decarbonisation will have on ship technology and it creates a series of unique challenges and opportunities.

The fundamental method of power exchange in a vessel with hybrid power systems will be the transmission of chemical energy to an electrical convertor – rather than chemical energy to a rotating convertor, which is currently the basis of the ICE. Moreover, as future energy will be harder to obtain – especially as it will have to come from excess renewable energy, in the form of hydrogen, ammonia, etc – shipping companies will need to make the most of these new, more efficient transfer

ALTERNATIVE FUELS: VIEWPOINT

mechanisms and the new wave of innovation they will lead.

By decoupling propulsion from electrical systems, hybrid solutions can, for example, allow propellers and cargo discharge pumps to work at different speeds while also providing valuable backup emergency power using variable speed shaft generators (VSSG). VSSGs give the crew more control over the power supplied to the propeller, with additional generators supplying power to the propeller at different speeds when necessary. The hybrid drive allows excess energy from the propeller shaft to be recovered and re-used for additional power when needed, reducing overall power consumption – all efficiencies that are intrinsically linked to hybrid propulsion.

Høglund has been commissioned to supply systems of this kind for two asphalt carriers for Tipco, leading manufacturers and distributors of asphalt products, to be built in Wuhu shipyard, China.

The overall effect of these innovations is that the vessel will be able to operate at greater efficiency over a wider range of speeds and propeller pitches, with a smaller main engine. It also allows the cargo discharge pumps to operate at different speeds, increasing the range of terminals they can discharge at and giving additional flexibility in loading and unloading locations. The hybrid drive allows excess energy from the propeller shaft to be recovered and re-used for additional power when needed, reducing overall power consumption and providing valuable backup emergency power.

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

Høglund’s recent projects demonstrate how it’s possible to bring these technologies together to create the next generation of more efficient ships – and how automation systems are essential in bringing these technologies together. For example, we were recently commissioned to supply advanced hybrid and automation systems for six hybrid bulk vessels, with potential for six more, on order for Finland’s ESL Shipping, a leading carrier of dry bulk cargoes in the Baltic region.

These 1A ice class bulk vessels will reduce GHG emissions – including CO2 – per cargo unit transported by almost 50% compared to ESL’s existing ships, making the vessels the most efficient in the world in their class.

The vessels will use batteries, shore-side electricity solutions and electric hybrid solutions to enable completely emission-free and noisefree port calls, being able to arrive and leave port with electric power alone.

Høglund will supply automation and hybrid systems for these vessels. Our Integrated Automation Systems (IAS) will link alarm monitoring, control and power management systems, giving crew and shoreside teams reliability and control over the vessel’s systems.

The IAS will integrate with Høglund’s cloud-based ship performance monitor (SPM), using data from the automation systems to monitor performance in real time.

As alternative fuels enter the market, and pressure grows on owners to decarbonise, it can be hard to predict fuel choices, considering different ships have radically different needs and options. However, for most vessels, it’s still too early to accurately predict what they will be using in the years and decades to come.

If owners take a forensic look at energy management, with careful attention to the systems they choose, it will set them up to take advantage of the widest set of options possible, ensuring their fleet can keep its options open and remain future proof amid future fuel uncertainty.

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COATINGS

Owners and operators have not only had problems obtaining crews for their ships, but also getting spaces in shipyards to carry out maintenance work, including painting and hull repairs

ROOM FOR MANOEUVRE Coatings suppliers such as Nippon Paint Marine have been highlighting the the difficulties of operating in an environment where freight rates are high, workforce is limited and covid-19 restrictions are affecting capacity in shipyards, particularly in Southeast Asia.

According to Nippon Paint Marine, the region’s ship repair capacity could be more than 25% down on pre-pandemic levels. “In 2019, a total of 516 vessels totalling 28m dwt drydocked at Singapore shipyards for paint jobs, but numbers dwindled to 296 ships in 2020 and 316 the following year as the world responded to the covid-19 pandemic. Similar shortfalls are forecast at repair yards across Southeast Asia,” says Bill Phua, managing director, Nippon Paint Marine (Singapore).

“We expect the number of vessels drydocking in the Asia Pacific region for a new coating to be 680-800, slightly up on the previous two years but still only 6070% of the number of vessels that docked in 2019, which had a combined tonnage approaching 76m dwt.”

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Having returned from visits to yards in Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and the Middle East, Phua noted that strict virus safety measures and travel restrictions in place to deal with the omicron variant are impacting the availability of workers to carry out the work.

“There’s still this limitation in place, restricting some yard’s achieving full capacity,” he says.

High freight rates are also expected to continue to affect repair volumes, as shipowners postpone scheduled drydockings to keep vessels trading.

“It does create planning problems, especially at Chinese repair yards where there are very strict quarantine protocols in place. Drydockings are taking considerably longer. We are seeing ships diverted to Vietnam, Dubai,” he explains.

The increase in the number of vessels applying more fuel-efficient hull coatings, however, is expected to prove a boon for repair yards and coatings companies over coming months.

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COATINGS

According to Phua, COP26’s Clydebank Declaration and the push to create “green shipping lanes” will result in a greater focus on hull coating technologies, given the environmental impact of biofouling, algae and barnacles on fuel consumption, especially when hulls are idle or slow steaming due to high port congestion.

“This is now a key consideration for operators specifying a hull coating. An idling ship is more attractive to marine life, so an antifouling that minimises this risk offers the operator a real and measurable commercial advantage,” he says.

Fouling results in speed loss, increased power demand, more fuel, increased costs and an increase in already high CO2 emissions. It also perpetuates the spread of invasive aquatic species to new environments, further affecting biodiversity and the marine ecosystem.

The enforcement of ever-stricter rules will require ship operators to comply and up the ante in terms of the technology adopted.

“An idling ship is more attractive to marine life, so an antifouling that minimises this risk offers the operator a real and measurable commercial advantage”

COSCO CONTRACT

COSCO Shipping says it will coat its fleet of VLCCs with Nippon Paint Marine’s new antifouling system FASTAR® once initial applications have been evaluated.

The hulls of the passenger ferry COSCO Star and the 56,000dwt bulk carrier Xin Liu Lin Hai will each be coated with the antifouling at drydockings scheduled later this year.

The shipowner selected the novel nano resin containing paint – introduced to the market early last year – to help vessels meet the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) requirements. The amendment to MARPOL Annex VI, which requires all vessels above 400gt to measure their energy efficiency, enters into force in January 2023.

Jun Ye, M & R sales director, Nippon Paint Marine (China), says: “COSCO Shipping has a long history of applying Nippon Paint Marine antifouling to the hulls of its vessels as a way of improving propulsion efficiency and reducing emissions. Once the shipowner has verified the precise, predictable performance of FASTAR on these two vessels, more vessels are expected to take advantage of this revolutionary coating system.”

COSCO Shipping says: “We were keen to evaluate and assess the feasibility of Nippon Paint’s next

generation antifouling for possible VLCC application. The coating’s potential to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions by up to 8% is attractive and seen as a viable way towards meeting EEXI requirements.

We also anticipate reduced paint volumes and quick drying time will result in cost savings.”

“With the current high freight rates, shipowners want to keep their vessels trading for as long as possible. FASTAR antifouling not only provides next level performance but improves drydock efficiency, reducing significantly the time required in drydock for paint work,” says Jun Ye. “As there is not enough capacity to meet current demand, yards are limiting the number of days for each drydocking as a way of increasing the number of projects they can take on.

“Drydock locations are no longer set in stone due to the delays at some Chinese yards, especially in Zhoushan and Ningbo. Rather than wait for a slot shipowner are moving their ships elsewhere. It’s a real headache for coatings suppliers.”

FASTAR is a self-polishing antifouling paint that incorporates a nano-domain resin structure designed to minimise the effect that seawater temperatures, vessel speeds and other external factors have on coating performance.

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COATINGS

CARBON INTENSITY DROP

A Jotun study released last year and based on European Union Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) data has revealed vessels using Jotun Hull Performance Solutions reported a 20% lower carbon intensity in operations.

Based on the latest carbon emissions MRV data published by the EU, cargo vessels using Jotun’s Hull Performance Solutions (HPS) reported a 20% lower carbon intensity on average in operations compared to non-HPS products in 2019 and 2020.

Statistics also indicate lower carbon emissions than from vessels known to be sailing with some “low-friction” foul-release silicone coatings that claim to offer market-leading performance.

Only coatings applied within the three years preceding the emissions report were considered.

The internal study carried out

by Jotun investigated major cargo vessel types, including bulk carriers, chemical tankers and oil tankers, with a dataset of almost 9,000 vessels, and the emissions report was verified by accredited parties.

The Carbon Intensity Index (CII) set to be implemented by the International Maritime Organization in 2023 focuses on the yearly reduction in emissions during operations.

So vessel owners cannot just rely on the “out-of-dock” effect of hull maintenance. They need a reliable and effective antifouling solution that will perform consistently throughout the service interval.

Maintaining a cleaner hull with minimal fouling means a vessel has less resistance when sailing through water. Consequently, less power and fuel are required for the same speed and this directly reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released.

Jotun says vessels may be technically designed to be energy efficient and meet the Energy Efficiency Design Index and Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index requirements. In actual service, however, marine fouling, weather conditions and operational factors come into play.

While there are multiple ways to reduce the carbon intensity of

operations, fouling protection is perhaps one of the most important and easiest to take advantage of, the company believes. It is already part of maintenance docking. It is also of great importance as the increased resistance of a fouled hull can easily negate efficiency gains from energy saving devices and modifications.

PERFORMANCE INDICATOR

Swedish biotechnology company I-Tech, developer of the antifouling agent, Selektope, has published five-year performance results achieved on a container vessel using a copper-free, Selektope-containing antifouling coating.

In March 2016, the hull of the 8,900teu containership was coated with Seaflo Neo CF Premium. This antifouling coating, supplied by Chugoku Marine Paints, was the first to be launched on the market suitable for ocean-going vessels that contains Selektope.

After 60 months of operation in waters with a high biofouling risk and with no hull cleaning undertaken, the ship entered dry dock with the vertical sides, flat bottom and niche areas of the hull completely free of any barnacle growth.

During this time, the container ship moved at an average speed of 17 knots in warm waters with an average operation level of 78%. The performance degradation of the vessel was evaluated in line with the in-service performance indicator standard, ISO 19030.

Analysis of the performance data (see below) confirms that the ship had a zero speed loss over 60 months.

Compared with the market average for

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antifouling products, over a 60-month period the ship achieved 16.5% fuel savings and its CO2 emissions were reduced by 85,500 tons.

Biofouling risk increases in warm waters, peaking in water temperatures above 25°C. Depending on the season, between 50%85% of ship idling occurs in water temperatures above 15°C, where risk increases significantly.

The size and scale of biofouling hotspots, particularly those in tropical and sub-tropical waters, are increasing as climate change warms water temperatures globally. These areas contain higher concentrations of marine organisms responsible for biofouling on ships.

As such, vessels spending most of their time in these regions are at a higher risk of excessive hard fouling accumulation.

“The number of vessels entering dry dock after completing a five-year sailing period with Selektope protection in place is increasing, and the results speak for themselves,” says Per Svensson, sales and marketing director at I-Tech.

Our technology can mitigate highly impactful hard fouling, regardless of ship type, trading route and operational profile.

“Oceanic temperatures are warming, this means that conditions for barnacle population growth in coastal waters are becoming more favourable, increasing the risk of fouling.

Since this type of hard fouling has an immensely negative impact on ship efficiency, the role of antifouling solutions that make use of our technology, Selektope is increasing in importance.”

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PROPULSION

Coming up with propulsion systems that meet the new requirements for low emissions and high performance is a challenge. However, there are a number of new products on the market that not only meet commercial shipping industry needs, but also require low maintenance, at a time when yard time is at a premium © Thordon Bearings

MEETING THE CHALLENGE MAN Energy Solutions has been pushing dual fuel retrofits of low-speed engines as a move towards decarbonisation. The company says that dual-fuel retrofits have already been effective on MAN & B&W low-speed engines and offer substantial energy savings when fuelled by carbon neutral products.

The company is offering a number of options for the retrofit conversion of conventionally- fuelled engines including the use of ethane, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and methanol variants and is working towards being able to offer a retrofit option using ammonia as fuel in order to meet vessels’ five year dry-docking options after the first quarter of 2025.

According to Klaus Rasmussen, head of projects at MAN PrimeServe: “A massive number of vessels in the current, ocean-going fleet have the potential for conversion, and our broad and continuously expanding portfolio of dual fuel engines offers extensive options when it comes

to retrofitting”. Conversion to methanol is particularly attractive.

PrimeServ recently retrofitted what the company says was the greenest ever selective catalytic reduction system for a German cruise ship, which the company says adapts to limited space and meets Norwegian emissions standards.

SAFE RETURN TO PORT

Thordon Bearings has unveiled the BlueWater Seal, a new propeller shaft seal with a unique safe-return-to-port (SRTP) design that specifically meets commercial shipping industry needs for low maintenance and robust shaft seal.

The Thordon BlueWater Seal completes the Compac open seawater lubricated propeller shaft bearing system.

Taking the company’s TG100 and SeaThigor seal products as the technical benchmark, the Thordon BlueWater Seal is a cost effective, commercial grade axial lip seal specifically designed for merchant shipping fleets, the company says.

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PROPULSION

While retaining many of the key features associated with the company’s existing seal portfolio, the new, more commercially focused BlueWater Seal is a low-maintenance, highperformance product.

The BlueWater Seal also incorporates Thordon’s emergency SRTP capability. This ground-breaking technology, first used in the company’s TG100 and SeaThigor – designed for the workboat and specialised naval vessel markets respectively – represents the first SRTP seal designed for the merchant fleet.

Commenting on the development, Thordon Bearings’ technical director, Anthony Hamilton, says: “The BlueWater Seal meets growing market demand for a complete propeller shaft line solution from a single source.

Although we can offer the seal as

an individual component, it forms a fundamental part of the Thordon Compac open seawater lubricated propeller shaft bearing system.”

The Compac system includes Thordon’s proprietary seawater lubricated Compac bearings, shaft liners, ThorShield anti-corrosion shaft coating, a Thordon water quality package, a Thordon bearing condition monitoring system, and, now, the new BlueWater Seal.

The seal can be installed in all vessels with shaft diameters between 300mm to 1000mm (11.8in to 39.4in) and is simple to install, operate and maintain.

“At first glance the Thordon BlueWater Seal may look like any other axial lip face seal out there,” says Hamilton. “But what makes this seal unique is its SRTP capability and revolutionary Renform main seal ring.”

This technology, developed in-house by chief research engineer Gary Ren, allows the facing elements of the seal to operate almost without any friction.

In practical terms, it means the seal is much better suited to variable and low draught conditions – a key benefit to a globally-operating merchant ship.

During comparative trials on Thordon’s full-scale test rig in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, the seal operated without friction spikes and considerably less friction than similar

seals leading to reduced wear, longer life and less maintenance.

“This seal minimises water leakage and dramatically improves hydrodynamic and lubrication efficiency,” explains Hamilton. “The development is a real boon to those shipowners and operators looking to adopt an open seawater lubricated shaft line arrangement as the entire propeller shaft line system can now be sourced from one company.”

CARBON CAPTURING

The Korean Register has awarded Approval in Principle to Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) and Panasia for their onboard carbon capture and storage system, an eco-friendly technology that captures the carbon dioxide emitted in the exhaust gases generated from the internal combustion engines of ships.

As a result of efforts to reduce emissions, many shipowners are considering installing carbon capture devices and adopting eco-friendly alternative fuels such as ammonia, hydrogen, and methanol in order to comply with the Carbon Intensity Indicator regulations.

The optimised wet absorption type CO2 capture device developed by SHI and Panasia is the result of three years of joint research and development and seeks to address the need for additional carbon reduction technology to realise carbon neutrality in the midto long-term. The system is the very first of its kind to be developed in Korea and KR conducted the HAZID analysis to assess the system’s risk factors.

KR executive vice president KIM Daeheon says: “This AIP is an extremely important step to help shipping companies stay compliant with the stringent decarbonisation regulations. KR is committed to actively supporting the application of these ecotechnologies, and to helping shipping companies meet their environmental obligations for the good of the industry and society as a whole.”

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Thordon’s chief research engineer, Gary Ren, pictured with the BlueWater Seal featuring the newly developed Renform main seal ring

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Shipowners, operators and managers responding to an environmental survey carried out by Canadabased McMaster University’s

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DeGroote School of Business have acknowledged the need to reduce operational oil leakage from propeller shafts. But a lack of understanding about cleaner alternatives is preventing any meaningful technological change.

Researchers questioned more than 1,000 marine industry professionals last year to better understand why the majority of newbuild ships continue to be fitted with outdated oil lubricated propeller shafts when proven, cleaner technology is widely available.

Ken Deal, professor of marketing, at DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, says: “The DeGroote School of Business works closely with organisations to provide practical experiential learning for students. The survey, designed

PROPULSION

to better educate the shipping industry’s decision makers, provides a good example of how academia and business can work together to help different industries achieve their environmental goals.”

McMaster University, part of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, identified a large gap in knowledge about seawater lubricated systems.

According to the findings, while 74% of the respondents believed “oil leaking from the stern tube negatively affects the environment”, responses indicated a lack of knowledge about the costs, benefits, reliability, technical equivalence, and performance realities of an open seawater lubricated propeller shaft bearing system.

Of all the 25 questions posed, the most telling indication as to why shipowners continue to specify oil-lubricated systems was gleaned from question six: “How important are the following factors when choosing an oil lubricated system over a seawater lubricated system for your fleet?”. Variations of “it works, so why change it,” made up the majority of answers.

Jeff Tennebaum, marketing manager at Thordon Bearings, who instigated the study, says: “Many of the respondents were not fully aware of the problem. They obviously care about the environment, but the results suggest they may not consider a stern tube oil leak to be a significant source of pollution.”

In responses to the survey, there appeared to be a misconception that seawater-lubricated propeller shafts were not as proven as oillubricated systems. Respondents were unaware of the technical advancements seawater-lubricated propeller shaft bearing systems have made over the years.

“The problem with seawaterlubricated shafts is that we have to withdraw them every five-to-six years. If that is solved, then I would prefer them over the oil lubricated shaft,” said another respondent.

“This [oil lubrication] is the industry standard”. “Mostly due to what’s offered by the yard”. “It was never proposed by any newbuilding shipyard”. “Shipyards are reluctant to change to a water lubricated arrangement”, were just some of the survey responses.

Craig Carter, vice president of business development at Thordon Bearings, says: “An immediate increase in shipowners demanding water-lubricated systems would slowly pivot the direction of the global shipping industry towards a much more environmentally sustainable, zero pollution future; one that’s in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #14 and with the IMO’s World Maritime Theme for 2022 - New technologies for greener shipping.

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“We are disappointed, of course, that the ‘if it works, why change it’ mentality persists but we will address these issues through a series of educational videos, seminars and workshops.”

WIND PROPULSION FIRST

An automated wind propulsion system developed by French technology pioneer Airseas has been installed for the first time on a commercial ship to significantly reduce carbon emissions, following Bureau Veritas approval to begin operations at sea.

Airseas has completed the first installation of its automated kite Seawing on a commercial vessel, marking an important milestone in the deployment of wind-assisted technologies to curb emissions from shipping.

The first Seawing system has been installed on the vessel Ville de Bordeaux, chartered by Airbus and operated by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs.

The ro-ro, which transports major aircraft components between France and the US, is deploying the 500m2 Seawing on its monthly transatlantic journeys.

Airseas has received formal approval from leading classification society Bureau Veritas to begin operations at sea, following three years of close collaboration on the development and early trials of the Seawing.

Founded by former Airbus engineers, Airseas integrates expertise from the aeronautical sector, including digital twin and automation technology, with the maritime industry.

Airseas’ full-size Seawing is a 1,000m2 parafoil which flies at an altitude of 300m, capturing the strength of the wind to propel the vessel. Based on modelling and preliminary testing on land, Airseas estimates that the Seawing system will enable an average 20% reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Vincent Bernatets, chief executive of Airseas says: “A decade ago, we embarked on the ambitious project of channelling our unique aviation expertise towards creating a cleaner and more sustainable shipping industry.

“Today, I am proud to see that vision becoming reality, with our first Seawing ready to make a tangible difference for our planet. This first installation marks a significant milestone not only for Airseas, but also for wind and other renewable propulsion technologies in general.

Given the urgency of the climate

crisis, the world needs to see a drastic reduction in carbon emissions now. In shipping, we can achieve this by using the full set of tools we have available to us today. Wind propulsion is one of these and will play an essential role in helping shipping achieve its much-needed decarbonisation transition.”

Ville de Bordeaux, chartered by Airbus and operated by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs

The first Seawing system has been installed on the vessel Ville de Bordeaux

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IT: INTERVIEW

AI can be a game changer so far as shipping is concerned. Roberto Coustas of DeepSea Technologies talks to Clean Shipping International about weather routing

PREDICTING THE UNPREDICTABLE

Roberto Coustas CEO & Co-Founder, DeepSea Technologies

Q You mentioned divisiveness in shipping as far as AI is concerned. Do you feel that this continues to be a major concern for the industry which has often been accused of being behind the times?

A Deep fragmentation continues to delay adoption of data-driven technology.

The industry has so far been unable to reach a consensus on which efficiency enhancements to choose, delaying not only the digital maturation of individual companies, but also the ongoing development of potentially gamechanging solutions.

To meet environmental regulations as rapidly as possible, a data-driven approach needs to be accessible and advantageous to all. Standardisation across the global fleet will be key to unlocking the full potential of data and AI in shipping – and accelerating the decarbonisation of the sector.

Frustratingly, a split incentive also exists, dividing responsibility for fuel costs between shipowners, operators, and charterers. The value proposition for owners to invest in eco-

efficiency technologies is therefore unclear, preventing investment in increasing vessel efficiency. Charterers, on the other hand, often face rising fuel bills and may lack the additional budget to invest in new datadriven solutions – perceiving both costs and risk to be too high.

Addressing this split incentive will be challenging. Antiquated contractual structures – on which international maritime trade has been built over 150 years – often directly counter decarbonisation efforts. Efficiency measures such as speed reduction, route optimisation and cargo intake limits can breach existing charter party terms, putting charterers in dispute with owners. The long-established “rush to wait” mentality is also a factor, complicated by the potential profit shipowners can generate through demurrage. Unfortunately, this combination of dynamics results in efficiency sacrifices, rather than prioritisation of environmental performance.

Resolving these issues will require an industry-wide shift in thinking. Improving

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access to data-driven technologies can accelerate this process. With new AI-driven technologies bringing down the cost of these solutions, the number of industry players realising significant financial and environmental benefits from adopting a data-driven approach is rapidly increasing. At DeepSea, our aim is to maintain this momentum, further increasing understanding of the value these investments offer when buying or chartering specific vessels.

Q Can you give me a view of what the major selling points of your products are, as opposed to those already on the market?

A Weather routing is a well-known concept, having been used in shipping for years to optimise voyages by analysing existing weather forecasts, and plot the most time- and emissionsefficient way of getting from point A to point B. The technology behind DeepSea’s latest product, Pythia, is far more than just weather routing.

Pythia is an industry-first, next generation weather-routing and voyageoptimisation platform. The solution is tailored to the exact performance of individual vessels, under all conditions, using AI performance models based on highly detailed real-time data.

By using real-time data, Pythia obtains a highly accurate understanding of a vessel – it’s DNA, so to speak. This allows for the development of dynamic, tailor-made performance models for each ship.

Analysing 19 different parameters, these models accurately track how a vessel performs over time, and under any condition, including those relating to weather and the physical state of the vessel, such as fouling levels.

Taking into consideration a vessel’s DNA, Pythia sets itself apart from traditional weather-routing technology by adding layers of accuracy to weather-routing capability.

This essentially offers operators a crystal ball, predicting what a voyage will look like before it has even begun.

Without the intelligence gained from understanding a vessel’s performance prior to disembarkation, this level of real-time management is unreachable

– effectively meaning that weather routing data, used as a standalone technology, only provides part of the solution.

Q Is it possible to say that you can predict with 99% accuracy what a vessel voyage will look like? Is this not being over-optimistic in view of the potential for things to go wrong that were not predicted?

A Before it even leaves port, AIpowered modelling provides a critical foundation for understanding a vessel’s performance. This level of predictability means that, even accounting for uncertainties in weather, a voyage can be predicted – with 99% accuracy – before it begins.

Furthermore, the modelling is able to offer energy efficiency improvements well beyond monitoring – it can power a system that adapts in real-time to the changing conditions.

Continual automated monitoring of a vessel’s existing data sources and third-party data means that the correct actions can be taken when unpredicted weather conditions inevitably occur. For example, an optimal change in speed can be suggested if an unexpected seastate is encountered – thereby turning the unpredictable into something that can be intelligently managed.

We understand that modelling vessel performance with 99% accuracy seems like a bold claim, which is why we’ve compiled a collection of real-life examples to prove it. In one comparison of Pythia versus a traditional weather routing provider, a vessel sailing from Shanghai to Singapore saved 12.1m tonnes of bunker fuel, equating to a cost and CO2 saving of more than $6,000 and around 35 tonnes, respectively.

Both approaches reacted to the same weather information.

However, without integrated hull modelling, the traditional weather routing provider made major overadjustments for currents, leading to a significant negative impact on fuel consumption. This led to a greater overall fuel consumption than if the ship had foregone the routing process completely and instead simply stuck to a constant speed.

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Q How do you eliminate the dangers of user error as a cause of accidents or, alternatively, users relying so heavily on technology that they forget to look out the window?

A Technology is not a complete replacement for human intervention when it comes to safety and so, of course, we expect that you will still need to look out of the window in certain circumstances.

Human failure and technical/ machine failure require separate management and should always be accounted for. However what DeepSea can provide is a 99% predictability that maximises time and efficiency to ultimately enhance the safety of a vessel based on data that we can be certain of.

Q Given that some vessels – fewer these days – have been converted from one use to another, that is changes to DNA that have to be taken into account. How do you cater for this in calculating how vessels will react in extreme weather conditions?

A DeepSea has a database based on the modelling of more than 300 vessels, ranging from tankers, bulk carriers and container ships to ro-ro vessels and liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas carriers. We’re able to pull information about how each type of vessel should behave and use this as the foundation for our vessel blueprint. We then install sensors to gather specific vessel data, and taking into account any conversions made to a vessel, utilise an algorithm to filter out any anomalies.

Q What benefits do you feel the family’s far-reaching experience in the industry bring to the table?

A My family’s strong ties to shipping certainly allowed me the space to nurture my interest in the industry.

Back when we were younger, DeepSea’s co-founder, Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos, and I would board my father’s ships to test various technology.

It was these experiences that truly cemented my passion for the development of technology that would change shipping for the better.

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IT: VIEWPOINT

IT has a vital role to play in making operations more efficient and hopefully reducing emissions. Darren Shelton and Jonathan Arneault of Fuel Trust look at digitising transparency and trust in fuel supply

TACKLING TRANSPARENCY

Darren Shelton Chief Product Officer, Fuel Trust

Jonathan Arneault, Chief Executive, Fuel Trust

The shipping industry, and particularly the bunker market, faces a serious challenge in addressing the climate emergency and meeting its decarbonisation and wider sustainability commitments. Currently, however, vessel operators lack the accurate and reliable information needed to take the corrective actions necessary to see impactful results.

At the same time as regulators and authorities are accelerating emissions reduction schedules, they are planning to drive compliance by imposing carbon levies on vessel operators proportionate to their vessel emissions. Additionally, stakeholders in sectors along the value chain, such as manufacturing and agriculture, are pressing for shipping to pay more attention to environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria and be more environmentally conscious. To meet all these challenges, the shipping industry, and more particularly the bunker sector, needs a more transparent, traceable and truthful approach to measuring and reporting emissions from its

vessels. This includes having an accurate understanding of what is happening to fuel along its journey, from source to combustion to emission.

DEFICIENT DATA LOWERS TRUST

Quality and fraud issues are well known in the bunker industry and frequently accepted by vessel operators as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Discrepancies in the quantity of fuel delivered during bunkering are often overlooked, being up to 3% less than that stated on the bunker delivery note (BDN). These low-transparency transactions add up to billions of dollars lost by shipping each year. This lack of transparency is symptomatic of the wider challenge the industry faces. There is also a serious blind spot when it comes to what exactly is in the fuel being purchased and how that fuel performs in terms of efficiency, emissions and ESG values.

The current, generally accepted standards for measuring and accounting for vessel

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emissions and their environmental impact are based on generalized calculations created by governments – which can’t account for the wide variety of engine types, efficiencies, operational decisions, and levels of maintenance. greenhouse gas and particulate emissions are calculated on a vesselby-vessel basis using specifications laid down by manufacturers when the vessel is built and commissioned and estimates of emissions that are classified for particular types and grades of marine fuel.

Calculating vessel emissions, using these broad-brush methods, could result in vessel owners and operators being charged or taxed too much relative to their actual emissions – even if they’ve taken actions to improve their emissions performance.

A MORE EFFECTIVE MEASURE

At FuelTrust, our goal is to enable a more trusted, transparent, and sustainable global supply chain fuel ecosystem and commercial shipping fleet, and thus a brighter future for our industry and society.

We use real-time data intelligence to provide visibility into the marine fuel ecosystem for vessel operators and bunker suppliers. Our artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchainenabled technologies help the industry validate carbon emissions, mitigate against poor quality marine fuel, identify and differentiate fuel quality, and reduce fraud and errors along the value chain.

We use our patented blockchain technology to provide an indisputable record of fuel transactions throughout the supply chain. FuelTrust uses hybrid blockchain to give suppliers, owners, and all users, permission-dependent access to permissioned data. By creating a decentralised, immutable store of information, FuelTrust customers benefit from a record of information – a single source of truth – that they create and control access to.

Alongside this, we use our AI technology to trace the links recorded in the blockchain of fuel transactions from source, through combustion and emission. We call this the AI Digital Chemist™. The AI Digital Chemist

analyses data from laboratory certificates of analysis (COA), BDNs and vessel operations along each step of the journey a batch of fuel takes; as it is bought, sold, blended, and then finally used as fuel.

“Our goal is to enable a more trusted, transparent, and sustainable global supply chain fuel ecosystem and commercial shipping fleet” SEEING AT A MOLECULAR LEVEL

FuelTrust’s AI technology analyses the data and by creating a chemical digital twin and replicating interactions in the fuel at a molecular level to identify how it has been blended, what reactions would have taken place between molecules, and what occurred during combustion.

This enables us to accurately report on fuel characteristics and emissions. Our experience of tracking, recording, and analysing this data often reveals huge discrepancies in fuel characteristics. Vessel owners and operators need to be aware of these differences to enable them to have accurate information when dealing with regulators and seeking potential carbon credits based on their decarbonisation initiatives.

One issue we have discovered in working with our clients and their counterparties’ data is a stark difference in fuel energy densities.

Based on our analysis of data done on 14m barrels of very low sulphur fuel across 28 batches, we identified a difference in performance between

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batches of fuel of up to 3%. For a fully laden panamax container ship, this would equate to a 50MT saving of fuel on a voyage from Vancouver, Canada to Portsmouth, UK, or the equivalent of up to 469 nautical miles of additional sailing distance on a typical bunker.

For owners and operators, this data is crucial to understanding where and when to buy fuel, and for fuel suppliers, it represents an opportunity to escape commodity selling and market a superior fuel offering.

USING TECHNOLOGY TO TAKE A WIDER VIEW

We can use our technology and our Bunker Insights™ and Carbon Baseline™ products to trace the origin and outcomes of alternative fuels such as green ammonia, or biofuels, or even fuels and materials in other supply chains like chemicals, aviation fuels, or metals.

Our analyses can be used as independent and neutral evidence for vessel owners wanting to demonstrate compliance with fuel regulations and can also be used as an intermediary between counter parties where our permissioned blockchain enables a single source of truth and trust.

Across a range of services built on our AI and blockchain technologies, we help the shipping industry understand what is happening in the fuel supply chain, make informed decisions about when and where to bunker, and accurately measure and report on vessel emissions to demonstrate regulatory compliance to a wide array of stakeholders.

New fuels and new interest from stakeholders will continue to drive the shipping industry and the bunkering sector to increase their understanding of the fuels they use and supply.

The industry will need to deliver accountability and value for investors and regulators, customers, and consumers alike.

Achieving this will impose tremendous logistical challenges– but by accurately simulating and analysing the contents of fuel tanks, and engines, we can create a trusted, transparent fuels supply chain that can deliver insight and accountability quickly and cost effectively.

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IT: NEWS

Innovations in IT are streamlining the industry, having a positive effect on everything from training to issuing invoices

SMOOTH OPERATIONS The Synergy Marine Group has become the latest corporate customer to join Seably’s digital platform for bespoke maritime training.

Headquartered in Singapore, and spanning a network of 25 offices in 13 countries, Synergy employs more than 18,000 seafarers and manages a fleet of more than 500 vessels, including the most complex LNG, LPG and 20,000 plus TEU container ships, as well as oil and chemical tankers, and bulk carriers.

Martin Ackermann, Synergy’s Chief Commercial Officer says: “Continuous learning is at the heart of our culture at Synergy – and our commitment to helping our people upskill and thrive in an everchanging world.

“Our engagement with Seably reflects our joint interests and shared values in putting seafarers first and improving safety at sea. Seably’s exciting new seafarercentric digital training platform is the perfect vehicle for ongoing learning, training and development.”

He continues: “The dynamics of the new digital platform usher in a new way of delivering maritime training and development, providing relevant, content that is easy to understand and digest.

“It also means that our seafarers will have access to an increased amount of personalised learning material that will enhance their safety and overall wellbeing.”

Seably provides affordable and free access to the latest maritime training and development for real-life learning. Created by seafarers for seafarers, it delivers effective immersive learning for the maritime sector in a unique, digitalised, and online format, available virtually anywhere in the world.

Uniquely, it has a shared revenue algorithm for the international community of course providers.

The Seably platform can be accessed online and offline, at any time on land or at sea using apps, PCs and mobile devices.

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SOFTWARE PARTNERSHIP

Harbor Lab, an e-disbursements platform for shipowners, ship management companies and charterers, and Veson Nautical, a global market leader for commercial maritime software, have announced a secure, turnkey integration between their two systems.

The product partnership will enable joint clients to intentionally share relevant data between the Veson IMOS Platform (VIP) and Harbor Lab, streamlining engagements with local port agencies to drive time and cost savings.

Harbor Lab provides an endto-end disbursement accounting processing solution designed to give immediate access to vital port and disbursement information and free up valuable resources for disbursements departments.

With more than 8,000 port calls processed to date, the Harbor Lab platform’s Disbursement Accounting Tool brings shipowners and agents together through one online port directory.

The solution brings enhanced visibility and efficiency to the process of selecting, nominating, or appointing a port agent, evaluating disbursement accounts, and checking port costs.

Shipowners and operators can allocate the costs associated with each vessel call and make important decisions based on this information, which can result in significant savings.

“Traditional paper-based disbursement accounting is administrative-heavy, involves complex communications chains, and has significant room for error,” says Antonis Malaxianakis, chief executive of Harbor Lab. “Harbor Lab’s DA Tool entirely streamlines this process and empowers the vessel operator to oversee their expenses in-house through their own Disbursement Accounting teams using technology and algorithms. Accurate port data drives the DA Tool and gives complete visibility of tariffs and other port fees that the operator may otherwise find difficult to clarify.”

Combining Harbor Lab’s powerful disbursement accounting capabilities

with the broader operational workflows within the Veson IMOS Platform allows for a truly processdriven workflow. Operators can securely nominate Harbor Lab as the Hub Agent from within VIP, and then seamlessly receive accurate Port Disbursement details directly into VIP, thereby streamlining the process, while ensuring accuracy.

With a more streamlined process, mutual clients can realise operational and financial efficiencies by simplifying communications with their agency hub partners.

Jere Richardson, chief commercial officer of Veson Nautical comments: “Agent activity, document handling, and Port Disbursement management are essential to successful and profitable voyage operations.

“This integration helps unlock a new level of transparency and efficiency for our clients by allowing the secure and automatic exchange of data needed to discharge and invoice their customers as activities progress.

“Our goal is to help facilitate a smoother experience at port.”

SATELLITE LINK

OneWeb, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company, and Marlink, the Smart Network Company, have joined forces to bring OneWeb’s high-speed, low latency connectivity to the maritime, energy, enterprise and humanitarian sectors.

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Marlink operates a global industry-leading VSAT network and has unrivalled market access providing remote communications across the maritime, offshore and onshore energy, enterprise and humanitarian sectors. In partnership with OneWeb, Marlink will further enhance the capabilities of its hybrid network solutions and offer its customers truly differentiated, flexible, reliable and secure connectivity solutions, optimised for every application.

The two companies plan to concentrate on the energy sector in regions above the 50th parallel north from January 2022, expanding to the maritime, energy, enterprise and humanitarian sectors on a global scale from January 2023.

Together, OneWeb and Marlink will deploy, test and demonstrate several types of user terminals and LEO connectivity services to customers across these market segments.

OneWeb is making significant progress in building its constellation and currently has 394 satellites in Low Earth Orbit, representing more than 60% of its planned fleet, delivering connectivity to customers in remote regions of Alaska, Canada and the North Sea. Launches will continue during 2022 to enable the company to offer commercial connectivity services globally for maritime in 2023.

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BALLAST WATER: VIEWPOINT

Shipowners need a partnership-based approach to navigate ballast water bottlenecks, says Henrik Krull of De Nora

BYPASSING THE BOTTLENECKS

Henrik Krull Area Sales Manager, De Nora

It is often said that shipping is a regulation-driven industry. A complex patchwork of rules across multiple jurisdictions has always created difficulties for shipowners. Ballast water regulations are no exception, with two separate regimes that dictate two different standards and processes for the proper treatment of ballast water.

Compliance adds costs, which can be considerable; shipowners must make significant investments in new ballast water management systems (BWMS) for their vessels, as well on crew training and administration. Non-compliance could cost far more in fines, vessel detentions, and potential legal action.

Navigating ballast water implementation is set to be difficult enough for shipowners, especially as deadlines for implementation get closer.

Suppliers need to be able to provide comprehensive support and flexibility, to help shipowners manage complex compliance logistics.

BOTTLENECKS ARE GROWING

All newbuild ships must install a BWMS today and existing ships have been required to install a BWMS at their next survey since 2019 before final implementation in 2024.

There are currently tens of thousands of vessels trading without a BWMS installed and the vast majority of these will be retrofitted over the coming years.

These timelines, embedded in global regulations, were always going to cause a peak in demand as owners rush to achieve compliance. Even before the covid-19 pandemic, we were expecting to see bottlenecks in the run up to the final implementation of the D-2.

The pandemic, along with its side effects in the industry, has made all these factors more extreme; some suppliers have faced persistent supply chain disruption and a significant number of vessels have seen their dry docks relocated, cancelled, or postponed. This makes it even more complex to secure and install a system on time.

Even after installing a system, problems

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may persist. These bottlenecks may leave some suppliers unable to provide spare parts and maintenance services quickly and create costly extra delays for shipowners.

MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICES

Bottlenecks highlight the importance of thoroughly planning ballast water compliance in advance. Not only does it make it harder to secure a system by a ship’s deadline, it makes it harder to make sure that a ship will achieve long-term, cost-effective operational compliance.

Installing the wrong BWMS on a vessel could have long term consequences. Shipowners must make significant investments, expecting a compliant system to be operationally efficient as well; repeated treatment failures, unexpected maintenance or excess operational expenditure could have a real impact on the commercial value of the vessel.

To combat this, shipowners should consider a vessel’s specifics and the design configuration of a prospective BWMS. A well-designed BWMS prioritises both treatment quality and operability for crews. It will comfortably meet both the United States Coast Guard and International Maritime Organization treatment standards, in a wide range

of water conditions and deliver that treatment in an energy efficient way.

Owners must also account the specific parameters of a vessel and the trade it is intended for in their decision making. This includes water quality , as well as the treatment rated capacity and will usually require bespoke testing.

For example, a UV system may deliver better cost-efficiency for smaller treatment-rated capacity vessels – including vessels that regularly ballast in ports with low salinity water. However, UV systems can struggle to treat high turbidity water to the proper standard at the nominal flow rate.

Similarly, an electrochlorination (EC) system will usually be more practical and deliver lower long-term costs for a larger ship. For these vessels, slipstream EC systems deliver a flexible footprint and can efficiently treat large ballast capacities at low power consumption requirements.

SUPPLIERS MUST ACT AS PARTNERS

Given these challenges, it is more important than ever that BWMS suppliers work consultatively with shipowners throughout the installation process and operation of their systems.

As shipowners must now plan further ahead, working closely with

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flexible suppliers who act as trusted partners delivers even more value.

By supplying honest and thorough guidance, a supplier can help a shipowner to properly assess the applicability of a system.

This approach extends to ensuring that technical support is delivered to the right place at the right time and by the best team. Alongside a partnershipdriven approach, this requires that suppliers expand production capacity, to create more agile and responsive supply chains.

De Nora has always taken a qualityfirst approach, both to our systems and to our service. The recent acquisition of Hyde Marine means that De Nora is now able to supply the leading Hyde Guardian UV based BWMS alongside the Balpure slip-stream EC system. This is already allowing us to simplify these processes and identify efficiencies in production and service support. Eventually this will lead to an even more streamlined experience for shipowners.

Bottlenecks are set to create new challenges for makers and shipowners.

Service and flexibility are set to add more and more value to shipowners, and suppliers must be ready to deliver on this promise. This will require work and suppliers who have already started this process will be best placed to deliver.

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BALLAST WATER: NEWS

With regulations relating to ballast water already in place, how the industry goes forward with implementation is key and there are a number of options on the table relating both to funding and implementation

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP Damen, which has a wide range of ballast water treatment systems, has signed up Erma First to supply the world’s smallest system, oneTANK. This uses chemical injection to clean vessels’ ballast water.

Damen Green Solutions systems offer shipowners various capacities and techniques in treating their ballast water.

With the addition of oneTANK, Damen can provide clients with a solution that is not only small, but also modular. This modularity will be particularly important in Damen’s first project with Erma First, where the client was looking for a plug-and-play ballast water treatment product that could be placed on the deck of its vessel.

“Our client needed a temporary ballast water treatment solution for quite an old vessel,” explains Damen sales manager, Rutger van Dam. “Erma First’s oneTANK is small enough to be housed in a 20ft container. This means that installation will be quite straightforward and, more importantly, at the end of the vessel’s operational life, the whole system can be

removed and installed on another vessel.”

The contract is important to Damen because it broadens the scope of ballast water treatment products that it can offer its clients. “We have different systems available from various manufacturers. We know the pros and cons of all these systems. They have varying capacities and use different techniques: UV, filtration, electrolysis, and now chemical injection. Whatever the client requires, we have the knowledge and experience in house to offer exactly what our they are looking for.”

To treat a vessel’s ballast water, the fully-certified Erma First oneTANK uses an 8.25% or 12.5% sodium hypochlorite and 30% sodium thiosulfate solution, with both chemicals being neutralised after use. “For owners working with workboats, superyachts and pontoons (smaller vessels) that are not dependent on frequent ballast operations, oneTANK is a great solution,” continues Van Dam. OneTANK is a small scale innovative, lowcost, fully automated, International Maritime

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BALLAST WATER: NEWS

Organization Revised G8 Code and United States Coast Guard compliant system. Also, its mixing technology is developed and patented by the US Geological Survey.

“The oneTANK system is a game-changer for all size and type of vessels with space limitations, struggling to comply with stringent ballast water regulations. Hence, oneTANK is the ultimate solution for larger vessels’ aftpeak tanks as well as for smaller vessels, such as workboats, tugboats, semi-submersibles, fishing vessels and superyachts” says Konstantinos Dimopoulos, international sales manager.

OneTANK been tested to demonstrate removal of viable aquatic invasive species, it also ensures that residual chemical levels are environmentally friendly. The technology has undertaken significant testing for disinfection by-products in accordance with guidance from the International Maritime Organization.

Dimopoulos says: “A small, simple system, it is also a sustainable system. oneTANK uses no exotic materials, no filtration, no transformers or rectifiers.

At the end of its life, the system is fully recyclable.”

Erma First business development manager and president of HemExpo, Eleni Polychronopoulou, says: “We are very happy to be working with Damen on this project. We will support their client with our extensive knowledge of ballast water treatment systems wherever we can.

“Furthermore, such industrial participation is a key part of the modern shipbuilding industry. May this cooperation be a sign of things to come.”

Throughout the world, Damen has been involved in national shipbuilding projects that have combined its own shipbuilding expertise with the capabilities of local industries and workforce.

“We don’t just build ships in our own yards – we can also help our clients build their vessels in the yard of their choice in collaboration with its local industry,” says Damen’s industrial participation manager, Marijke Winiarski. “Contracts like this with Erma First are an example of Damen’s approach towards the involvement of local industries in our projects, paving the way for local companies to benefit from its international opportunities, while simultaneously helping Damen to develop new partnerships, such as this one with Erma First.”

INDUSTRY ASSISTANCE

Wavefront Leasing has set up a fund to finance ballast water management systems. Assistance includes providing financial support to industry players to ensure they comply with International Maritime Organization and US Coast Guard requirements and the company can also offer thirdparty finance to enable companies to finance the investment in BWMS. C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

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GREEN PORTS: VIEWPOINT

Is it possible to provide reliable, cost-effective, and low-emission power to ports? Robert Schluter of e1Marine believes the answer lies in methanol-tohydrogen technology – and has a plan to achieve change

WHY PORTS HOLD THE POWER

Robert Schluter Managing Director, e1 Marine

Due to the supply chain crisis, a light is shining on the underinvestment in ports. As a key player in the maritime industry, ports can improve the sustainability of the entire supply chain process.

There is a growing need for ports’ dynamic energy demands to be met in an adaptive, flexible and expandable manner. This is coming in several forms, most notably through demands for greater sustainability, and global warming creating more volatile weather conditions that’s affecting the reliability of power in ports.

Efforts have been underway to reduce ports’ Scope 2 and 3 emissions, but port operations, including the operation of vessels at berth, remain major contributors to local air pollution. The European Commission plans “to regulate access of the most polluting ships to EU ports and to oblige docked ships to use shore-side electricity” within its Green Deal. From 2025, all EU ports will be required to have cold ironing provision by the end of 2025.

There is also growing political pressure in North America and at many of the biggest ports in Southeast Asia to better regulate shipping emissions. Even though the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted emission standards for diesel engines, it recently estimated that 40% of the nation’s major ports are in or near areas that have violated National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

Additionally, approximately, one-third to one-half of the emissions come from vessels’ auxiliary diesel engines which are run while the vessel is at berth, when they require electrical power for services ranging from lighting to loading. The potential for progress is huge.

ADDING INFRASTRUCTURE TO MITIGATE EMISSIONS

Several ports have developed the infrastructure, regulations or incentives that help to mitigate shipping emissions in ports. However, it still remains relatively uncommon for all three to exist on a global

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GREEN PORTS: VIEWPOINT

scale. However, there is a common trend that many ports, including the Port of Rotterdam and Peel Ports, are publicly stating their aim to become net zero, both for the port infrastructure and for the vessels that are visiting.

The increase in drive to do this will ignite progress, it’s just about providing the catalyst to make it a reality and finding the viable solution.

In many ports, the availability of electricity connections isn’t anywhere near the demand required. Many ports, for example, are located near major cities with their own huge electricity demands.

Connected to that is the reality that shore power not only requires an onshore power connection, but also ships that are able to connect to this power source. For this reason, shore power is most feasible right now for point-to-point connections, such as ferries, container lines and ro/ro- ships.

Efforts to reduce vessel port emissions involves requiring ships to shut off diesel engines while at berth to reduce the significant emissions produced by a ship’s diesel engines. In cold-ironing, a vessel at berth electrically connects to a source of electricity on the shore such as the grid, and shuts down its auxiliary engines.

Power for hotel and other ship loads is supplied from shore power (electric grids) or could be provided by barges or shore-side systems of clean power generation when power is not available at the pier.

The practice is common in the U.S. Navy but barely utilised for large commercial vessels. Until recently, only a handful of ports in the world have provided cold-ironing capability to shipping vessels or cruise ships.

However, grid power is rarely available in the volumes required, and the cost of bringing grid power to the pier is cost prohibitive.

Faced with these hurdles, and growing social, regulatory, and financial demands for greater sustainability, ports are looking to meet their dynamic energy demands in adaptive, flexible, and scalable ways.

FUEL CELL POWER SOLUTION

Fuel cell technology offers a viable solution to this challenge. The solution is ideal for a wide range of marine applications, marine power, cold ironing, reefer, micro grid and EV charging.

The most successful ship type to benefit would be smaller vessels such as tugs offshore support vessels while also tanker and container ships have high potential.

This solution is ideal for both short and deep-sea shipping, as well as port side power. Navigating the changing tides won’t be easy and zero-carbon shipping will require the evolution of many maritime business models, but solutions are available that can make progress now. e1 Marine has developed a containerised 400 kW methanol/fuel cell power solution that can provide near-zero emission MW scale power at the pier, on a barge, or onboard a vessel.

Fuel cells operating on hydrogen produced from e1 Marine’s methanol to hydrogen generators are a quiet, efficient, and can readily support port cold ironing applications.

The e1 Marine solution consumes 35% less energy than diesel-generators and is cost-effective today even before considering any new regulations or carbon tax.

As well as producing zero particulates, zero NOX, zero SOX emissions and 28% less CO2 than a diesel generator, the e1 Marine

“Efforts to reduce vessel port emissions involves requiring ships to shut off diesel engines while at berth”

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solution is able to meet all future regulatory requirements by switching to renewable methanol.

ADDING THE POWER OF METHANOL

The e1 Marine hydrogen generator uses catalytic steam reforming to produce hydrogen from methanol and water. One-third of the hydrogen produced is attributable to the addition of water, which can be recycled from the PEM fuel cell exhaust. The system produces zero particulates, zero NOx, zero SOx, and far less CO2 than a diesel generator. And, if you use renewable methanol, the system produces nearzero greenhouse gas emissions.

The technology has many advantages over diesel engines, including superior fuel efficiency, low maintenance, and minimal repair costs. The product hydrogen output from the generator meets ISO standards. It is ideal for fuel cells to generate electricity or directly into a conventional engine to supplement the standard fuel. Power output from the system paired with fuel cells can range from 100kW to 2MW and more.

Additionally, methanol offers far greater hydrogen density; it is a far safer and cheaper solution, it is an environmentally friendly noncryogenic liquid. It is available in 88 of the world’s top 100 ports and can be 100% renewable.

The Port of Rotterdam Authority has calculated that the total energy demand and consumption of sea-going vessels at its berths – the world’s 10th busiest port – amounts to approximately 750-850GWh (equivalent to 250,000 households) each year. In addition, fueled by growth of population, economy and trade, the OECD / ITF estimates that shipping emissions in ports will grow fourfold up to 2050.

With the high energy demands of ports only set to increase, this demand needs to be met in an adaptive, flexible, and expandable manner. Pressure for greater sustainability is growing, but for ports to meet this demand, shore power not only requires an on-shore power connection, but also ships that are able to connect to this power source. The demand is here, and methanol can meet it.

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LAST WORD

LAST WORD NEWS, VIEWS AND MORE FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE

AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT AMMONIA

DNV has been selected to lead an ammonia bunkering safety study by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation in Singapore. The pioneering study aims to define a robust set of safety and operational guidelines that will establish the basis for ammonia bunkering trials at two local sites.

DNV will team up with Singapore’s leading infrastructure developer Surbana Jurong and the Singapore Maritime Academy. DNV’s work will comprise ammonia demand forecasting, bunkering site recommendations, the development of conceptual designs of bunkering modes like truck to ship or ship to ship, HAZID/HAZOP/QRA studies, as well as drafting of technical and operational guidelines.

While ammonia is said to be one of the most promising fuels to decarbonise shipping, DNV research shows that a number of safety gaps hold the potential to disrupt the speed and success of the transition. “The safe handling of ammonia is one such gap which urgently needs to be closed, given the threat it poses to seafarers and ships unless properly managed,” says Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, chief executive of DNV Maritime.

LET’S TALK ABOUT LITHIUM

While certain risks relating to the characteristics of lithium have been well-known for decades, the recent exponential (and persistent) growth in its use, together with scientific advances have resulted in it presenting an “emerging risk” to the transport and logistics industry. The latest edition of TT Talk provides some opening comments on a topic that is causing concern in terms of safety and emergency response, and consequent regulatory strain.

TT Club’s analysis of claims points to an increase in impact-related incidents, with corrosion of tank containers’ inner surface and contamination caused by cargoes previously carried as significant other causes of loss.

For details on both topics, visit: ttclub.com

REAPING REWARDS

The Insurance Development Forum (IDF), a publicprivate partnership led by the insurance industry and supported by the UN, World Bank and other international organisations, has announced a trilateral partnership with MapAction and Start Network to accelerate anticipatory action and disaster risk reduction in eight climate-vulnerable countries.

The initiative represents IDF’s commitment to the

Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP). IDF is committed to contribute to REAP’s aim to make 1bn people safer from disaster by 2025 and this initiative with MapAction and Start Network is part of that effort. The organisations supporting and funding the IDF Anticipatory Action and Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative include Aon, AXA, AXIS Capital, Milliman, Willis Towers Watson, Swiss Re Foundation and the Zurich Insurance Group.

EAGLE’S ENVIRONMENTAL FIRST

AET has named its newest vessel, which is also one of the world’s first dual-fuel and among the most environmentally friendly VLCCs in the market. It is the first of two dual-fuel VLCCs built for long-term charter to Chartering and Shipping Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of TotalEnergies.

The 300,000dwt tanker, Eagle Valence, was unveiled at a virtual naming ceremony held at the Samsung Heavy Industries Shipyard in Geoje, South Korea.

SIGN UP TO A BIG ADVENTURE

The Mission to Seafarers has launched Adventure Race Japan, taking place in May 2023. All sponsors and participants of this exciting challenge event will support the Mission’s Emerging Port Strategy 2022-26, a five-year plan to develop existing operations in Asia specifically, but also globally.

Adventure Race Japan will take place on the Izu Peninsula, Japan, a place of outstanding natural beauty and a designated UNESCO Global Geopark. Companies are invited to enter teams of three to take on this endurance challenge, which includes trail running and water-based activities.

Participants will benefit from team building with colleagues, networking with both Japanese and international industry partners during the challenge and at the gala dinners, as well as raising money to help seafarers.

Designed to suit both those who are relatively new to adventure races and to those hardened athletes who are raring for a new challenge, there will be two race options, the “Green Dragon Race” and the “Black Dragon Race”, offering the option to walk or run the trails on the first two days of the challenge.

Companies will be asked to pay a registration fee of US$6,000 per team of three, which will cover the cost of running the event.

For more information on Mission to Seafarer’s Adventure Race Japan, and to sign up, visit: missiontoseafarers.org

C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Spring 2022

UNDERSTANDING THE TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP HOW TO AVOID FUTURE PROBLEMS AND BUY BULK SOLIDS HANDLING EQUIPMENT INTELLIGENTLY The OBJECTIVE OF THE COURSE is to raise awareness amongst bulk terminal buyers of the need to behave in a better-informed way and equipment suppliers to understand the operational needs of the equipment they are supplying.

KEY TAKAWAYS: The course will give both terminal operators and equipment manufacturers an insight into what should be on the one side be specified, and on the other side supplied.

The course will be delivered through EXPERT PRESENTATIONS, CASE STUDIES and GROUP WORKING facilitated by The Wolfson Centre for Bulk Solids Handling Technology and the Solids Handling & Processing Association (SHAPA).

20-21 SEPTEMBER 2022

SHORT COURSE ONLINE

SUBJECTS COVERED INCLUDE: » Nature of the problem » The Hall of Shame – examples of projects that have gone off the rails to greater or lesser degree » Quantifying how high the risk is – a review of the Rand Report findings » Understanding why technical risk is so high with bulk solids handling projects » Know your enemy – materials for design and for controlling technical risk » Practical approach to design to accommodate material characteristics » The virtue of the bespoke suit over prêt-à-porter » A project management approach is not enough – understanding the true cost of a bulk solids handling system to a business » CASE STUDIES: Risk management in solids handling projects – examples of good practice in bulk handling project procurement and some projects that managed significant risks effectively » DISCUSSION GROUPS – delegates break into groups under the supervision of the course tutors to discuss how well they currently apply best practice, what they can improve for the future and the difficulties to be overcome

For further COURSE DETAILS and to REGISTER please see bulkterminals.org/events/coursesand-training/understanding-the-total-cost-ofownership or contact Simon Gutteridge events@bulkterminals.org +33 (0)321 47 72 19 We are pleased to offer delegates to CHoPS 2022 the same discounted rate as ABTO and SHAPA members. Please use the discount code CHoPS22 on the course registration form.

Posidonia 6 -10 June 2022

Metropolitan Expo, Athens Greece

www.posidonia-events.com