S4S: Please state recent key developments for your organization
G.T.: In the last year the major development is the recent merger between which basically resulted in the largest classification society today. This basically amounts to an organization of about 6,000 employees who are focused only on maritime industry and a total organization of 16,000 employees. We have created a large organization which is actually in the making. As it was announced this year during the first day of Posidonia by Mr. Bousounis who is our regional manager, Piraeus will become one of the biggest support centres in order to support the local ship owners.
S4S: What will be the biggest challenge in terms of Safety & Environmental protection up to 2020? How this will affect the industry and how should we prepare to face this?
G.T.: In terms of environmental challenge there are many rules and regulations that are going to come in place from IMO as well as EU which aim towards emission control. These have not been finalized yet, some of them because there are still many issues to be resolved and certain dates might be postponed. That proves to be a challenge for ship owners in order to fully comply with these new regulations when they will come in. There are of course other environmental regulations either in the making or wait to be implemented like the ballast water which unfortunately creates quite a challenging operating environment for all the ship owners. On the Safety sight, a message that was given by our maritime CEO, Mr. Svensen again in the first day of Posidonia, it was that we need to refocus on the safety of shipping, there have been many initiatives throughout the years but we really have to give a priority on the safety and the operation of our ships in order to avoid further big accidents.
S4S: What do you think of the future fuels? What do you see in terms of market growth for LNG?
G.T.: Based on a report regarding future fuels and a latest position paper that we have developed and it’s available actually for many months, the future holds a variety mix of different fuels, bio- fuels, LNG and of course the fuel that we have today, heavy fuel. Our prediction is that depending on the area around the world that we are looking at, trades and the route of the ship, in the very far future, 2050 for example, we could have a variety of fuels available in different areas. So, we could have for sea-going ships heavy fuel oil, for certain ECA areas LNG as a fuel and probably in certain specific places even bio- fuels but that will be governed only by the local regulations according to the economic and financial considerations done by the owners and of course the developments by the industry in terms of producing this fuels.
S4S: What do you think it will the preferred option for compliance in ECAs and why?
G.T.: Currently there are a series of different options as far as operating in ECA, such as LNG, low-sulfur fuel, scrubbers and so forth. There is no concrete answer to that, simply because each owner has different priorities and different financial background and considerations to make. Therefore, what we say is that we support all options technically and with advices to the owners in order to carry out the proper risk assessment and in order to have a safe operation of their ship’s. Whatever options available which is technically supported and it’s safer operation we are behind it and we support it.
S4S: What is your advice to the ship owners in terms of future ECA compliance?
G.T.: The ECA compliance is something that it is mandatory and owners have to take actions in order to comply with the emissions limit that exist in ECA areas. What we advise owners is to give a very careful look on their operational profile and basically carry out the technical study in order to have a technical safe operating vessel.
S4S: What is the main message for Posidonia this year? How do you assess the mood of ship owners at this Posidonia?
G.T.: I think many people have talked this year about energy efficiency, emissions controls LNG fuel ships and so forth. I will repeat two things and maybe it’s not the theme of Posidonia but it’s basically a message that we give out. Number one, after these recent merger between DNV & GL we are here and we are reinforcing what we have in Piraeus in order to support the local shipping community and finally we basically support and reinforce what Mr Svensen said in the first day of Posidonia that whatever course shipping takes in the future whatever route, whatever fuels and whatever designs the shipping operations have to be safe and of course friendly to the environment.
Above article is an edited version of SAFETY4SEA Interview video with George Teriakidis during Posidonia 2014
More details may be found by viewing his Interview video
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