The age discrimination of tankers over 15 and 20 years of age is not only jeopardizing safety on seas, Stena Bulk says, but it will also prevent the implementation of new fuels that is crucial for reaching environmental goals and mitigating the global climate change crisis.
Already today the industry is facing major investments because of upcoming regulations. In fact as Stena notes that the majority believes that this is only the beginning in the industry that soon will be faced with major investment challenges.
“LNG, bio-fuels, methanol dual-fuel, electricity, fuel cells or something even more innovative? We don’t know yet. Innovation and development will as always with certainty need many progress steps to live up to future regulations and requirements, even if the time now is limited!”
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Currently, a sustainable approach from a shipowner’s point of view is to build and maintain quality ships, which will have a technical lifespan of 30 years. They should also implement a financial model with a 25-year repayment year perspective, which will enable flexibility and innovations for sustainable solutions.
“We have the last decade seen many companies go under or entering into chapter 11 due to a bad market. Is this only due to bad timing entering the market? It is of course owners own fault that we order too many ships and “sell” ourselves too cheap as we are, and this is of course yet another challenge to handle,” Stena said.
However, the company thinks that age restriction is an old way of managing issues the industry faced 20 years ago. As it highlights, age restrictions do not only increase the risk of accidents instead of preventing them, but they also go against the strong sustainability trend in the global society, and demands for rapid change voiced by new talent.
“Companies who want to protect their image should increase the focus on listening to this growing movement rather than counteracting its good intentions by punishing ships in good mint condition.”
Finally, Stena is of the opinion that the responsibility for the transition to new fuels must go beyond developing new ship technology. It added that innovative shipowners must be supported by an infrastructure that ensures large-scale availability of new fuels, which an important enabler in the industry, as it is for driving progress in other areas of society.
