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AGE IS NO BARRIER DISCRIMINATION • ALTERNATIVE FUELS ARE AT THE TOP OF THE MARITIME AGENDA BUT, SAY STENA BULK AND CONCORDIA MARITIME, OLDER SHIPS CANNOT BE LEFT OUT OF THE TRANSITION
BACK IN THE 1990s, in the wake of the US Oil Pollution Act and the high-profile losses of tankers such as Exxon Valdez, Sea Empress, Braer and others, there was a lot of talk about the phenomenon of ‘substandard ships’ and what could be done about it. Keen to make a good impression, several major tanker charterers imposed apparently arbitrary age limits on the tankers they were prepared to hire. The result of that was the development of a two-tier market, much to the chagrin of those owners who had spent a lot of time and money in keeping their older ships up to the standards expected. Nonetheless, an improvement in safety did result. Those tankers built in the shadow of OPA 90 are now approaching the end of their working
HCB MONTHLY | JANUARY 2021
lives and, with attention moving on to reducing the environmental impact of global shipping activity, through increasingly strict emissions controls and – eventually – complete decarbonisation of the maritime fuel chain, a similar situation is in danger of developing. But, argue Erik Hånell, CEO of Stena Bulk, and Kim Ullman, CEO of Concordia Maritime, such thinking is not only mistaken, it also actively jeopardises efforts to achieve the decarbonisation targets. Owners around the world are looking at a range of options when building new tonnage but, they say, decarbonisation of the industry as a whole will not be possible unless owners seize the opportunities to improve the environmental performance of existing tonnage. What concerns them is that, if older vessels are going to find employment harder to come by, or if they generate substantially lower income, then owners will not have the funds to improve their environmental performance.
commitments. Who is willing to invest in a sustainable retrofitting solution if oil companies put unnecessary limitations on tonnage?” Stena Bulk and Concordia see governmental incentives, green finance and investor pressure as enablers that can put necessary activities in motion. Co-ordinating industry’s efforts to reduce CO² emissions would make research and development of the most promising solutions, such as hydrogen and fuel cells, more cost-efficient. The owners also note that a number of different fossil-free fuels are being evaluated and they are, to a high degree, compatible with existing equipment aboard tankers. “Stena’s biofuel tests have proved that realistic alternatives to diesel exist,” Hånell says. “Even if they take limited steps towards a major legal requirement, they demonstrate a positive intention and can become steppingstones towards fossil-free shipping. The main obstacles are availability, standardisation and price.”
ALREADY ON THE JOB “Stena is working hard on minimising greenhouse gas emissions from our operations – and just like many of our competitors, we are making significant progress,” says Hånell. “This relates both to designing and building new generations of energy-efficient vessels, but also innovations and enhancements to existing tonnage – which are essential to reach the 2050 reduction targets. But the narrowminded age discrimination of oil tankers is
STEPS TAKEN AND PLANNED Stena Bulk has, as Hånell explains, already made strides towards decarbonising its shipping activity. During the second quarter of 2020 it carried out a trial using biofuel derived entirely from waste. A ten-day transatlantic voyage by the 2016-built MR tanker Stena Immortal was fuelled completely by this biofuel and proved the technical and operational feasibility of using biofuel for regular tanker operations, the company says. It then introduced a range of low-carbon options for its customers, based on an offsetting programme across its fleet. “This allows customers to make use of low-carbon shipping options regardless of fuel availability on the specific route. It also guarantees that operation is performed without any disturbance to the shipment,” Stena Bulk said at the time.
jeopardising the entire industry’s global CO² reduction efforts.” Developing and implementing new technologies is an expensive undertaking and, Hånell says, “unnecessary age restrictions are, without doubt, sub-optimising the willingness to make the necessary financial
In September 2020 Stena Bulk completed a successful sea trial using a new bio-fuel oil produced by ExxonMobil, the first such fuel to be made commercially available. “The development of ExxonMobil’s biofuel is an important step towards a broader commercial use of low-carbon fuels and we
