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The European Parliament and Council have reached a provisional agreement on green shipping fuels, mandating a 2% reduction in the greenhouse gas (GHG) content of fuels by 2025 and an 80% reduction by 2050.  

This rule applies to vessels above a gross tonnage of 5,000, which are said to account for around 90% of CO₂ emissions in the shipping sector.

It sets a 2025 target for a 2% reduction in fuels’ GHG content, from a 2020 level of 91.16 grams of CO₂ per megajoule. 

The aim is to take this reduction level to 6% by 2030, 14.5% by 2035, 31% by 2040, 62% by 2045, and 80% by 2050.

The mandate will also apply to all energy used on voyages between EU ports. On voyages where the departure or arrival port is outside of the bloc or in the EU’s outermost regions, the mandate will apply to 50% of the energy used.

The Commission will review the rule by 2028 to ascertain if it needs to be extended to smaller vessels or vessels from non-EU nations.

According to the agreement, boxships and passenger ships will have to use onshore power supplies for all electricity requirements when docked at the quayside in key EU ports by 2030.

Finnish technology group Wartsila has signed a ten-year Guaranteed Asset Performance (GAP) agreement with French ferry operator Corsica Linea.

The deal is intended to guarantee that the electrical systems onboard Corsica Linea’s new LNG-fuelled ‘A Galeotta’ RoPax ferry operate effectively.

GAP is an innovative solution offered by Wartsila that ensures operational reliability by setting performance targets based on measured data.

Wartsila guarantees that these targets, which can include availability, reliability and fuel consumption, will be achieved through automated performance measurements, optimized maintenance practices and remote advisory services.

The 206-meter-long ship features two Wartsila 50DF dual-fuel main engines and two Wartsila 20DF dual-fuel auxiliary engines. According to Wartsila’s announced order book, this GAP deal was signed in Q4 2022.

Inspections of commercial shipping transiting to and from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea are at their lowest since the initiation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) in August 2022, aimed at unlocking millions of tonnes of much-needed foodstuffs grown in Ukraine to global markets.

According to an 8 May update from the Office of the UN Coordinator for the BSGI, 2.9 vessels are being inspected on average every day in May, comprising an average of 1.4 inbound and 1.5 outbound commercial vessels. At its peak in October 2022, the BSGI was inspecting 10.7 vessels each day, with 4.4 being inbound and 6.3 outbound.

The Office of the UN Coordinator said that the inspections rate had “significantly dropped”, with around 26 vessels currently in Turkish waters loaded with 1.15 million tonnes of grain and foodstuffs.

According to information shared by the Ukrainian delegation at the BSGI Joint Coordination Centre (JCC), there were 62 vessels waiting to move to Ukrainian ports. No inspections were carried out between 7 and 8 May.

Lomarlabs has announced a collaboration with UK-based climate tech start-up Seabound. Lomarlabs, UK shipping firm Lomar’s new venture lab subsidiary, focuses on entrepreneurs and startups who bring deep tech solutions to the maritime industry.

The new venture is spearheaded by former Lomar technical director Stylianos Papageorgiou, who has been appointed as managing director of the new organisation.

Seabound has developed a patent-pending compact carbon capture device that can be retrofitted into a ship’s engine exhaust at the funnel. The CO₂ chemically reacts with pebbles of quicklime, which then convert into limestone, keeping the CO₂ locked in.

The limestone pebbles are temporarily stored onboard before the ship returns to port, without any need for energy-intensive CO₂ separation, compression, or liquefaction.

Once back in port, the limestone pebbles are offloaded and either sold in pure form or turned back into quicklime and CO₂, for the quicklime to be reused onboard another vessel and the CO₂ sold for utilisation or sequestration.

Maritime freight management solutions provider Veson Nautical has announced its intent to acquire vessel valuation provider VesselsValue.

VesselsValue was founded in 2011 and is considered the market standard for daily updated, automated, vessel-specific valuations.

The company – which has nine offices globally including London, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Oslo – has a database consisting of more than 81,500 vessels and is focused on acquiring, storing, and commercializing data in the form of valuations, reports, and market insights.

Veson Nautical hopes to combine VesselsValue products and services with its existing solutions, improving model updates by incorporating information from sources within the Veson Nautical product portfolio, such as Q88 and Oceanbolt.

The area of VesselsValue that focuses on aviation will be spun out into a separate, standalone company.

In 2021, Veson Nautical bought Norway-based Oceanbolt, a data-as-a-service company that offers marine shipping intelligence for the dry bulk commodities and shipping operations market.