- Complying with decarbonisation rules will inevitably take up operational resources from shipowners.
- This regular income can make it easier to plan for investment-heavy emissions reduction technologies while increasing earnings.
- Climate compensation can offer an immediate solution.
Tankers International’s Matthew Smith makes the argument for clubbing together as reported by Splash 247.
Emissions
As consumers and financiers have better understood the pervasive nature of emissions, measuring, monitoring and ultimately reducing the carbon footprint of every step in the supply chain has become “table stakes” for end-users of oil and public stakeholders who drive regulators.
Virtually every large company connected to the energy industry today has an environmental policy that covers emissions throughout its logistics chain.
The supermajors and national oil companies especially have implemented ambitious policies, and emissions are now a real factor in their chartering decisions.
This has radically changed shipping’s decarbonisation dynamic.
The most visible sign of this shift is increased regulation, as the industry faces a series of incoming new landmark rules.
Zero-carbon ship
Yet fundamentally, zero-carbon ship technology and investments are still in their infancy and cannot be implemented overnight.
If a vessel is not able to demonstrate its EEXI or CII credentials, it may be restricted in trading options.
The EU is expected to implement even more robust rules soon, with plans to add shipping to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme currently progressing.
Those plans would explicitly tie carbon to costs and impact operational resources.
These rules will aid shipping’s transition to net-zero, and could arguably create even wider-reaching obligations.
Pooling as an enabler
The pooling model supports shipowners by moving most of these operational obligations away from the shipowner to the pool operator.
Pooling with Tankers International provides shipowners with the ability to better optimise voyage selection as they are less constrained by cash flow.
A pool will take care of these expenses while ensuring consistent cash flow to the shipowner through revenue sharing between all the pool vessels.
Yet, pooling can benefit the industry beyond shipowners.
Charterers are looking for green solutions today, while work on zero-carbon shipping will take time.
Climate compensation can offer an immediate solution.
Partnership
Tankers International’s Climate Compensation Voyage Scheme was recently launched in partnership with Vertree – a subsidiary of longstanding pool partner Hartree.
This allows charterers to choose from a range of nature-based options to offset the carbon, tailored to price, geographies and impact targets.
Where climate compensation is not a total solution to climate change on its own, it can play an immediate and meaningful contribution.
The scale of the decarbonisation challenge is set to stretch many shipowners’ bandwidth and cash flow close to breaking point, while many parts of the industry are already facing pressure to deliver.
Pools are crucial tools that can help drive solutions today.
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Source: Splash 247
