Sir,

I read with interest the Lloyd’s List article highlighting Dynacom founder Mr George Procopiou’s comments on a panel at Maritime Cyprus 2022.

He is right that oil is a fuel with special properties that make it easy to handle. He is also right that oil will likely be with us for the foreseeable future. 

The fact that oil is friendly to use and will likely be around for a while should not detract from efforts to develop alternative fuels and other solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The normal logic that we should stick with the cheapest, easiest approach breaks down when business-as-usual is causing irreparable damage to our ecosystem. When the consequences of doing something are dire, one may need to do things which are harder or cost more.

While the production of low- and zero-carbon fuels for use as marine fuel is far from being at scale today, they are not fiction. Numerous credible projects are being developed around the world to deliver these fuels in the next decade.

For instance, Yara Pilbara and ENGIE are building a renewable hydrogen plant for Yara’s existing ammonia facility. Fertiglobe has announced it will offtake 100% of OCI’s green hydrogen to produce 90,000 tonnes per annum of green ammonia. Scheduled to be operational in 2024, this Egyptian site will be the world’s first green ammonia plant. 

These fuels are more costly and difficult than oil. We are still a long way from having solutions that work for the entire industry. But all human progress is incremental — just as solar was not a cost-effective solution 10 years ago, shipping’s decarbonisation journey will evolve as human ingenuity is applied to challenges of cost and scale.

It is with this spirit that the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation has launched pilots to define safety parameters for ammonia bunkering, to bolster the supply chain integrity of biofuels, and to trial shipboard carbon capture, storage and offloading. 

This journey requires a whole-of-society effort. Consumers are a large part of the problem, but vehicle manufacturers can produce better cars, and taxi drivers and owners can choose which vehicles they use. Acknowledging that we have a long journey ahead, the right time to start is now.

Professor Lynn Loo, chief executive, Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation