Seafarers key to a safe transition to new fuels

Speaking in a session on the Maritime Just Transition Task Force at Seatrade Maritime Crew Connect Global, Bud Darr, Executive Vice President, Maritime Policy and Government Affairs for MSC Group said, “I am pretty certain despite all the talk about autonomous shipping and technology being taking a whole different level, with artificial intelligence being incorporated operations, I don't think we can complete this energy transition without  seafarers.”

These would be seafarers who are better trained, the current workforce upskilled and retained, and recruiting the next generation.

“So, I'm not sure we can get it done without that and I am certain we can't get it done safely about that. And I think seafarer is going to remain an incredibly important part of this equation,” he stated.

Julia Antastasiou, Chief of Crew Management for OSM Thome Crew Management, also stressed that industry needed to ensure that seafarers were a part of their journey and their voices heard.

While questions remain around the availability of different alternative fuels for shipping the future MSC is working on the basis that the fuels will come as otherwise none of the other issues matter.

Darr said the question was “will we be ready?”

When it comes to LNG, and future e-methane or synthetic methane Darr said you don’t see this question because the industry is ready, noting that according to SEA/LNG there are 597 ships operating on LNG today.

However, it is a bit of different picture for some of the other alternative fuels which are at various stages of development.

“We're pulling the same direction that requires  standards to be in place for these fuels to be able to safely use these fuels on board ship,” Darr said.

Reaching even a basic level of training standards internationally will not be easy though. The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) as part of the Maritime Just Transition Task Force conducted workshops to understand what competencies are required. According to Arvind Natrajan, Senior Manager for ICS, said it initially planned three workshops of two hours each. It ended up holding 12 workshops, each four hours long, and ended up with over 500 actionable points.

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“What we then did was that we sat with the subject matter experts, we went through all the actionable points and we looked at each one to see if there is any specific competency that needs to be addressed in relation to these fields,” he explained

“The consensus that we got from the workshop was that there is no new competency to be addressed. However, for each of the fuels there is some basic specific  about each of these fuels because every one of them have got some peculiarities.” As result for each of the new fuels there are specific knowledge and proficiencies that have to be addressed. Then for each of the fuels they mapped out specific knowledge and proficiencies required.

The workshops were conducted with shipping companies, technology manufacturers, and suppliers and the next step will be to consult with IMO member states with a view producing training standards when there is alignment of all member states. Something Arvind acknowledges will be no easy task.

Looking at the early stages of using new fuels MSC’s Darr said he didn’t think it could be understated that it needs to be done safely. “If we have a bad accident because we got it wrong in the early stages it's going to have genuine consequences for the future of that particular fuel that people are still trying to get comfortable with. So, I think it's really important that. We all pull together the same direction,” he stated.