American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), a US-based classification society, has announced that it is developing simulations of potential green maritime shipping corridors. Such a tool will allow users to determine if a particular corridor is feasible, and what the costs will be.
Simulations will also allow us to determine the range of improvements that will be required, and the sensitivity of costs to many different choices, like size of bunkering facilities for different alternative fuels. These sorts of metrics are very important when deciding how much to invest in a green corridor development.
The article below doesn’t reveal very much. But it’s clear that a major classification society can play a major role to influence the greening of maritime routes.
California and Japan signed a letter of intent (LOI) to establish a green corridor, and also implement some zero-emission infrastructure. There will also be some emphasis on zero-emission fuel infrastructure and offshore wind development. The LOI is backed by two memoranda of understanding (MOU), between the Polr of Los Angeles and the Port of Tokyo and Port of Yokohama.
Some environmental pressure groups such as Pacific Environment applaud the move. They are calling for mandatory enforcement of the green corridors with aggressive interim goals to aim at 100% zero-carbon shipping by 2040.
Green Corridors are an excellent way to get cooperation on emissions and climate initiatives between ports, governments, and carriers.
Green shipping corridors are the latest effort to create strategies for ESG compliance, particularly environmental, for the global shipping industry. These corridors are starting to show up in the planning stages. The intent is to create a connected system of ports that have all the improvements necessary to allow those ships using it to achieve a high level of compliance with green shipping standards.
That means the availability of fuels that meet international green standards such as those of IMO 2022, as well as green technology for loading and storage of containers and other products; and yard equipment that meets green operating standards.
Of these perhaps ensuring the availability of the fuels required is the most challenging. Availability alone is not enough; the price must be competitive, and sufficient storage must be in place; and long-term availability must be assured. The variety of fuels now under consideration for green ocean transport is a challenge. In addition to LSFO, some ships will soon require green methanol; major players such as Maersk and CMA-CGM are investing in methanol-powered ships. And recent studies have shown that fuels can burn greener, but the means of their production and storage have to be included in the fuel evaluation. An interesting study of this was made by Bureau Veritas (BV), a classification society, which described in detail the greenness from well to wake of a wide variety of power options from biodiesel and HS/LSFO to methanol and ammonia. Not all of these are easy to make and store.
So infrastructure will be incredibly important for the green corridors.
Some newly-announced corridors start from Singapore, which already has a large fuel infrastructure, and is a globally important financial center for dealing in fuels. That will be a tremendous advantage. European ports like Rotterdam and American ports like New York already have quite a bit of financial and storage infrastructure. These ports are already part of announced green corridors. However, even at these developed ports some of the alternative low emissions fuels are not available, nor is there the handling capability present.
The interview with the CEO of GCMD casts useful light on what’s needed.
Prof Lynn Loo, CEO of GCMD, in an interview at TOC Asia.
Much of the focus in decarbonising shipping is on the vessels, however, without developing landside infrastructure projects such as green corridors cannot take off.
Supply Chain and Logistics 