Discussions on digitalisation featured heavily at Riviera Maritime Media’s Asian Tanker Conference in Singapore, reports Edwin Lampert for Tankershipping.
Investment for improvement
Some of the most striking takeaways came from the contrasting and strongly held views around maritime digitalisation and communications.
Presentations on digital innovation and transformation were well received. A couple of audience polls underlined a willingness to match enthusiasm with investment in new software and technologies to improve a company’s competitiveness.
Participants choice
The attendees were asked for the type of software they believed would boost competitiveness over the next two years:
54% said predictive analytics software; 39% said commercial chartering and operations management software; 29% said onboard reporting hardware or software; and 7% said accounting or other back office software.
59% said that they expected their company’s IT budget to increase in the year ahead and 30% said it would be maintained.
Objections to autonomous tanker
The industry’s enthusiasm has its limits, particularly when it comes to the idea of a fully autonomous tanker. Three distinct, but related objections were apparent.
First, the financial risk. The notion that a company would be willing to run a 25-year-old vessel autonomously was met with incredulity. “Do you know how much a ship costs?” was one refrain.
The second objection is the insurance risk, a concern only amplified by an excellent presentation on cyber security.
And the third concern was that at a time where attention and resource is concentrated on complying with ever more stringent environmental regulation, autonomous vessels are an unwanted distraction.
Autonomous tankers at a distance
Memories of the protracted passage of ballast water treatment legislation and the associated compliance and enforcement saga are raw and for many still an open wound.
“We couldn’t even get a ballast water standard agreed. Could you imagine pilots and the US Coast Guard agreeing what type of autonomous ship can go halfway up the Mississippi river?” Ardmore Shipping’s chief operating officer Mark Cameron pithily observed.
“Autonomous tankers are a long way away. Let’s make it a by-product rather than something we need committees for – even though these committees are already here.”
Software desired
In the bottomline, for today’s tanker operators autonomous vessels are for the space age.
The Asian Tanker Conference showed owners and operators are overwhelmingly seeking software that will deliver immediately in this, the accountancy age.
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Source: Tankershipping
