Energy efficient shipping and a cyclical market

"Today if bunkers collapsed by $300 and rates went up by $30,000 a day, there is an incentive for people to push the pedal," offered Roger Janson, president of Cargill Ocean Transport. "But I think you need to look a bit forward. If we can develop vessels with lower energy consumption in any case, that's beneficial. It's beneficial from an environmental footprint point of view, its beneficial to the owners and to the operators."

"I think you need to look a bit further out, a bit more holistic than the current situation, where indeed you have older vessels with higher energy consumption that at lower rates are not economical, but do become economical if the market picks up. What has been put in motion is a swing towards more energy efficient and environmentally friendly vessels, that will not be stopped, even if circumstances change."

C K Ong, President of U-Ming Marine Transport Corp added: "It's more than just slow steaming."

"Once you install or retrofit your vessels with all of these efficiency devices, even if you increase the speed, the emissions will be less than the old ships and those without these new devices."

"Shipping is very cyclical, so there is a risk all of us have to take, yes we are looking at, if bunkers suddenly drop, then all of these calculations [for return on investment of energy saving devices] might not work out to be as good as originally thought, and that's a risk we all have to take."

"We look at it that these [fossil fuels] are limited resources, despite shale gas, all of these resources will continue to become in tight supply and the price will be high. In any case I think we have a job to ensure that the environment that we are operating in is properly protected."

Adding the equipment manufacturers thoughts, Tomas Aminoff, director technology strategy, ship power at Wärtsilä said: "Here we can see the value of sustainability reporting, because if major operators have declared their CO2 emissions reductions through slow steaming, if they now go up high-speed again this number will increase and they will have some explaining to do in their reports. This shows that there will be a focus on this area in the future."

The founder and director of Forum for the Future, Jonathon Porritt, took a wider view of the situation, and commented, "I think the answer to it depends on whether you think climate change is a fashionable concern that people will just have to deal with today and by tomorrow people will have forgotten it or whether you think accelerating climate change is the biggest, permanent, game changer in the history of civilisation."

"Climate change isn't going to stop and suddenly go in the other direction."

"From that perspective, the pressure on industry to maintain energy efficiency is very strong. Why would't you anyway, because of the financial benefits that come from that regardless, almost, of the environmental benefits?"

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