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CII is unfair to all ships: Union of Greek Shipowners

Photo: UGS Melina_Travlou_UGS.JPG
Melina Travlou, President of UGS
Greek shipowners are calling for amendments to IMO’s Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) led by the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) and Philippos Philis, President of ECSA.

Decarbonisation is an increasingly high priority to the Greek shipping community and though it has been estimated that a large proportion of the Greek owned fleet ranks highly in the new mandatory energy efficiency ratings from the IMO, frustration within shipping is rising and ideas on how best to revise it in 2026 are already evident.

The calls last week came despite the estimation that over a quarter of the Greek fleet have achieved an estimated CII rating of ‘A’, and 64% of the fleet have received an estimated rating between A-C.

Given the shortcomings of the gauge, it is good that ships that fail to comply with it will not be punished during the transitional period until its 2026 revision, Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) President, Melina Travlos, said 9 February during the union’s annual general assembly.

“In the end, it [the CII] is unfair to all ships,” said Travlos when revealing the UGS board has set up an internal special committee to “highlight the weaknesses of the measure”. She said the group’s task will be to “collect and assess data with a view to shape and put forward proposals that can improve the regulation and mitigate its impact”.

The UGS’ views reflect growing frustration and unease in maritime circles with the CII as shipowners claim that the way the index is measured is unfair towards certain classes of ships, or that it encourages trading patterns that defeat its environmental purpose.

Some have even accused charterers of using loopholes in the regulation to employ ships that are not covered by CII regulations.

On the same day, Trafigura’s global head of wet freight, Andrea Olivi, insisted the index should be based on the Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator (EEOI) rather than on the currently used Annual Efficiency Rate (AER). “We need to change the current format,” he said when addressing Capital Link’s 13th Annual Greek Shipping Forum in Athens.

With IMO secretary general, Kitack Lim in the audience, Olivi said that by focusing on vessels’ tonnage, the AER-based CII is “potentially promoting bad behaviour”, such as ballasting. A switch to the EEOI, which focuses more on tonne-miles of transport work rather than on deadweight tonnage, would represent an improvement. “It’s not perfect but definitely better than AER,” he said.

Philippos Philis, President of ECSA and CEO of Cyprus-based bulker company Lemissoler Navigation, said that in real life, the two measures can bring about completely different results. He gave the example of the Lemissoler ship producing the best rating under the AER generates the worst one under the EEOI.