YARA MARINE: CONVERTING SHIPPING’S CLIMATE IDEAS

To reach shipping’s decarbonisation goals, we must move from a year of planning to one of rapid, coordinated climate action, writes

Thomas Koniordos, CEO of Yara Marine Technologies.

Navigating the post-pandemic landscape and the impact of ongoing geopolitical instability – all while formulating long-term decarbonisation strategies – meant a year of highpaced change for the industry in 2022. As we advance through 2023, this is a good time to reflect on shipping’s achievements and the challenges it faced.

Coming out of the initial stages of the pandemic, demand increased for materials including electronics and steel. But supply struggled to keep up, hindered by lingering pandemic restrictions and new ones resulting from the war in Ukraine, resulting in shortages and increased prices. As in past years when the market has been challenged, the industry has learned and overcome, taking proactive steps to rebuild a resilient supply chain. The industry also struggled with its decarbonisation challenge. Several development projects focused on future fuels, wind propulsion and artificial intelligence-powered optimisation. These discussions and innovations are sure to continue in 2023. As owners, operators and charterers begin to make significant investments, this year will be crucial for the industry’s longterm climate goals.

Regulation And Data Comes Into Force

The entry into force of the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) and the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) maritime regulations in January 2023 meant that the previous year was spent setting the groundwork for compliance.

Finding suitable solutions that were approved by class societies became an industry endeavour that continues today. Combined with global supply issues and backlogs in repair yards, this has raised concerns over vessels being compliant in time.

The CII’s requirement for continuous improvement and the drive to make shipping operations more efficient reignited the debate about data in 2022.

AI and voyage optimisation tools were in focus, presenting new ways of gathering data and informing decisions. But the scope of CII was unclear for a long time, leading to questions about what data would be needed and how it could be efficiently gathered and analysed. This year will be a chance for the industry to come together and learn more about the best steps to take for compliance and a chance to evaluate the role of these regulations in our global journey towards decarbonisation.

From Scrubbers To Green Tech

In 2020, Yara Marine’s mission evolved from being only a scrubber provider to “providing technologies to enable a greener maritime industry”. This was driven in part by necessity –scrubber installations had been significantly affected by the pandemic – but was taken as an opportunity to strengthen our commitment to fight climate change by scaling up clean technologies.

Among the first of our partnership agreements was the collaboration with innovative, simulation-driven marine engineering consultancy BAR Technologies in 2021. The partnership allows us to accelerate the procurement, construction, installation, service, and training required to ensure that shipowners gain access globally to BARTech’s wind-assisted propulsion solution, WindWings.

Our expansion into green technology continued throughout 2021, with the revitalisation of shore power offerings and the acquisition of Lean Marine, bringing with it a wide portfolio of vessel optimisation products. These include solutions to automatically reduce consumption of any fuel on a vessel (FuelOpt) and collect and analyse fleet-wide data (Fleet Analytics).

The optimisation range has since been bolstered by the 2022 launch of Route Pilot AI, which uses digital twin modelling to simulate planned voyages in predicted environmental conditions, making every voyage more efficient than the last. All of this laid the foundation for 2022, the first year we entered the market with our current product portfolio.

Installing Our Portfolio

Many of our clients’ decisions last year were guided by market prices and regulations, which meant supporting a wide range of decarbonisation strategies. Amid rising fuel prices many shipping companies turned to cheaper alternatives, resulting in a need for pollution-reducing equipment.

Companies seeking high-quality solutions that would be reliable during the lifecycle of their vessels led to a second scrubber boom, during which Yara Marine’s SOx scrubbers reached more than 450 systems.

The past year also saw a resurgence in shore power, with many local authorities stressing the importance of reducing emissions at berth to reduce air and noise pollution. Tankers, containers and others followed the RoRo and cruise markets in adopting shore power solutions. Finnlines and Stena Line are among those that recognised the benefits of adopting this technology and worked with us to install shore power for their vessels.

2022 was also the year of action and acceleration for wind-assisted propulsion, with several new developments and – as fuel and technology prices increased – a clear incentive for greater uptake.

BAR Tech WindWings by Yara Marine Technologies have been receiving a great attention from shipowners.

The first vessel to undergo installation and deployment of two WindWings is Mitsubishi Corporation’s 80,962DWT bulk carrier Pyxis Ocean on charter with development partner Cargill, where one of those wings was funded by the European Union as part of EU Horizon 2020 Project CHEK. WindWings for these vessels are currently being built and assembled for the upcoming installation during the first half of 2023.

Other propulsion systems also received more attention in response to EEXI and CII. Propulsion optimisation tools such as FuelOpt allow for the execution of efficient voyages by analysing data from past voyages to create an optimum voyage plan. By completing the cycle of voyage planning, voyage execution and postvoyage analysis, operators can close the continuous improvement loop, achieving leaner operations, defining best practices and identifying further improvements for the next voyage.

As CII demands greater operational efficiency, solutions such as FuelOpt will be a cornerstone of shipping’s transition to net zero.

Hopes For 2023

The impact of climate change and climate-related disasters remind us that there is no time left to wait. Shipping will contribute its share of reducing emissions only if we make use of existing technologies now, and then embrace new technologies as they arrive on the market. Just waiting for new solutions will not be enough.

If shipping can encourage the development of new technology –supporting this process through knowledge sharing, product testing, and financing – we can make this technology cheaper and more accessible. Collaboration across the shipping value is essential for supporting the world’s decarbonisation journey.

Last year was spent reacting to unforeseen events and deciding decarbonisation strategies. To save the planet, 2023 needs to be the year when our transition to a carbon-neutral industry begins.

For more information, visit: yaramarine.com