Miltos Synefias, Technical Director, Pleiades Shipping Agents S.A responded to GREEN4SEA by sharing his concerns over the hot green shipping issues that industry will have to tackle during 2017.
GREEN4SEA: Do you think there was a significant success and/or progress made with respect to marine environment protection during 2016? Focusing on your area of expertise, what were the most important industry developments within 2016?
Miltos Synefias: The most significant developments concerning the Marine Environment Protection within 2016 were the ratification of the BWMS convention, the global 0.5%S cap in 2020, and the first type approval of BWTS by USCG being surprisingly a UV technology system which has earlier received so much negative publicity due to USCG not accepting the originally applied testing method.
G4S: Focusing on your area of expertise, what do you think that it will be the biggest marine environmental challenge(s) for the industry for the 2017?
M.S.: The biggest marine environmental challenge for the industry in 2017 will be the serious consideration of the SOx Scrubber technology as an applicable option on board the NBs by both ship operators and Regulatory authorities as such trend will seriously influence the global fuel grade availability and distribution by 2020.
G4S: What would be the 2017 resolutions for your company/ organization? What are your goals and aspirations to enhance environmental excellence? Do you have any new projects on the pipeline and/or plans for 2017 that you would like to share?
M.S.: Apart from organising our vessels and Head Office to meet MRV requirements we will thoroughly evaluate the SOx scrubber solution and consider implementing same in our NB projects.
G4S: What is your overall forecast for the marine environmental developments in 2017 and what would you like to share and/or wish and/or ask other industry stakeholders?
M.S.: I believe that the Marine Environmental protection developments are mostly driven by politics and very few meet the purpose, such as the measures that give energy-saving incentives.
The MRV is targeting to impose an indirect taxation to shipping, and the global 0.5%S cap by 2020 has officially shown the road towards the SOx scrubber technology as a serious option to maintain the heavy oil residuals as the main fuel for shipping.
But then are we turning the ships from simple transport means to monster process plants (BWTS + SOx Scrubber + NOx TierIII SCR or EGR)?
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of GREEN4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
