What to read after Feasibility of LNG as a Fuel for the Mediterranean SSS Fleet?

Forthcoming implementation of international and European environmental regulations, namely Marpol Annex VI and Directive 2012/33/EU, will force ship owners to assess technologies that can allow them to comply with regulation whilst helping them to improve their position in an increasingly competitive market.

Given the European economy’s fragile condition, prevailing uncertainty about its future and about the future evolution of key factors affecting the outcome of the ship owners’ decisions, making the right choice among the multiple feasible technologies available becomes a considerable challenge.

For the past two years, the undersigned team of analysts have worked together in a study leading towards the publication of this report. This analysis has been the Fundación Valenciaport’s contribution to the European Union (EU) co-funded project “CO2 and ship transport emission abatement by LNG” (the COSTA Action). The COSTA project has been coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and co-financed by the EU’s Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T) Programme under the Motorways of the Sea Call 2011.

Our objective has been to analyse which technology would give the best results for the ship owner to comply with environmental regulations concerning emissions from a financial point of view. This has been done for those vessels that are particularly affected by this regulation, that is, each of the 658 vessels deployed in short-sea shipping (SSS) lines calling at core ports in the Mediterranean and Black Sea EU countries and Portugal. Additionally, a cost-benefit analysis including externalities has been conducted.

As a result of this study, different scenarios on technology uptake towards 2030 for the Southern European SSS fleet have been defined. Needless to say, there is no certainty of how many of the driving factors will behave in the next 15 years. The results published in this report are not definitive predictions of the Mediterranean shipping sector in 2030. Instead, our main findings are intended to stimulate discussions about available options for the industry. By examining the entire SSS fleet operating in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Portuguese core ports, we hope to portray a general picture of the most convenient technological options for different kinds of vessels. In addition, we hope to draw attention to the factors explaining most of the uncertainty over future results and provide useful information for both ship owners and policy-makers who may be evaluating policies to foster the adoption of the technologies that are most environmentally friendly and contribute the most to the competitiveness of the shipping and shipbuilding sectors in Europe.

Financial feasibility and cost-benefit analyses for the conversion of each vessel deployed in short-sea services in the studied area have been validated with the collaboration of prominent industrial companies. We would like to thank experts working for MAN Diesel & Turbo, Caterpillar, Wärtsilä, Ros Roca Indox Cryo Energy, S.L., Boluda Corporación Marítima, RINA and Bureau Veritas for the information provided and for their help validating the results on the investment required for each ship in the SSS fleet to install scrubbers, be retrofitted to LNG dual fuel or be substituted by a newly built vessel of similar characteristics and operating with LNG dual fuel engines, tanks and all the necessary installations for this newbuilding to be LNG-compatible. Their support has also been crucial to check the operational costs of the ship for each pair of alternative options (the options compared have been: installing scrubbers, retrofitting to LNG dual fuel, newbuilding with HFO engines plus scrubbers, newbuilding with MGO engines (no scrubbers) and newbuilding with LNG engines and other LNG-related installations).

We share this report openly and free of charge to enhance the understanding of some of the challenges the shipping sector is facing, to encourage comprehension of the driving factors that affect the future competitiveness of short-sea shipping in the South of Europe and grasp the potential consequences that a “do nothing” scenario would bring in terms of modal backshift and increase in the use of road transport for intra-European trade flows. We hope you find this report useful and informative; and that it helps to stimulate discussion and thinking of the challenges, solutions and potential incentives to be put in place to favour the adoption of the technological options that will foster the competitiveness of the European shipping and shipbuilding industries. We sincerely hope you will enjoy reading the following pages.