ShipCrunch

Shipping's zero emissions imbroglio

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Yesterday's ZERO conference a very small step on the path to shipping's zero emissions future.

Perhaps it was the low turnout. Perhaps it was the ho-hum opening. But ZERO '09 convinced nobody of the future of zero emissions for shipping.

Coming to such a seminar, one can't help assessing whether zero emissions is a valid goal for shipping. At a customer seminar for a major marine engine producer last year, I heard the organizers scoff at such a goal. Their scorn for idealism reflected none too well on their green aspirations, in general, but they may have a point. Why waste time and money on starry-eyed idealism, if smaller-scale, realistic improvements suffer?

Wilh. Wilhelmsen, for one, has endorsed zero emissions as a goal, with its zero emissions concept ship, Orcelle. Per Brinchmann of Wilhelmsen was on hand at the ZERO seminar to share the status of Orcelle and the outlook for zero emissions shipping. Neither were very promising.

Shipping B2B killer app for social media

By Ryan Skinner (email)

During an interview a couple years back with Magnus Miemois, then VP in ship power (now VP for offshore) for Finnish Wärtsilä, he told me a funny thing about their approach to innovation: "We discovered that the advantages to keeping our innovations a secret were outweighed by the risks. Now we talk more to the market, to shipyards and owners, about new ways to do things, and new products."

Imagine that. Discussion and openness pay off. This gave me an idea.

Here's the background: I'm working with a client who has launched a new service to ship managers. The technical managers of a major shipowner tried out the service, and liked it. Now my client wants me to interview the owner and write up their experiences with it, and shop the article around to different shipping trade magazines.

This is all fair and good, and I'll do as my client asks. But I'll propose something more, something better: Let the market know about the product and the trial, and let them ask the owner and my client their questions directly. And let the shipowner's technical manager and my client's product manager answer the questions, right away.

Polar Petroleum Potential & Potential Pitfalls

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Nations racing for energy resources under the Arctic have so far kept their cool. Despite countless territorial disputes, as each nation bordering the Arctic strives to extend its continental shelf as far as it can, no shots have been fired.

Norway, a pioneer in subsea Arctic energy with its Snøhvit development, is treading delicately.

• It is a key NATO country that seeks a close role with Russian energy companies developing subsea Arctic resources. 

Top social media entrepreneurs in shipping

By Ryan Skinner (email)

These are the ones to watch on the social media scene when it comes to shipping...

To too many people in the marine industries, social media is what you call those pages in TradeWinds full of pictures of shipping magnates taken at diverse cocktail parties in Monaco or Hong Kong. That's a shame:

• Social media and blogs are the 4th most popular pastime on the Internet, beating personal email
• 64% of marketers use social media over 5 hours a week; 39% over 10 hours a week
• 80% of companies use, or plan to use, LinkedIn as their primary recruiting tool

For more of this stuff, look here, or here. Nay-sayers, be warned: Not only is this thing here to stay, it's going to get bigger.

Sadly for social media in this industry, many of the top shipping media titles were very slow to get off the mark, and their use of it is still relatively unsophisticated. That vacuum, however, has created opportunity for some go-getters, who have built themselves up in this new media environment.

10 technologies to change shipping - #3 ECDIS

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Pushed by the IMO on SOLAS ships, it's a blessing (in disguise?) to owners and the public alike.

A report published by DNV back in 2007 stated that making ECDIS mandatory on large merchant vessels would reduce groundings by a third. At the time, several national authorities, like Norway's, were lobbying IMO to do just that, and, last summer, the IMO resolved to make ECDIS mandatory on a rolling time-table.

Seemingly a humble monitor on the bridge, ECDIS will in time bring a revolution in how ships are run. Effectively, an ECDIS combines countless systems and sensors into a single interface that gives the user a complete picture of the ship and its environment, at any time in the past, present or future.

Frothy language? Maybe. Maybe not. If you consider what the offshore oil and gas industry is making of integrated operations, which is not much more sophisticated technically, you might reconsider the long-term impact of ECDIS.

Ghost fleets, trade peril & China vs. Mexico - Shipping in a recession: Part 1

By Ryan Skinner (email)

To the public, shipping is global trade's handmaid. Both may come damaged from a recession. 

The shipping community's recession nightmares are summed up in one photo, brought to us by the UK's Daily Mail. Here it is (under the headline "Ghost Fleet"):

The fleet of laid-up ships east of Singapore pictured is described as bigger than the US and British navies combined, with "no crew, no cargo and no destination". This is the shipping equivalent of a Florida neighborhood with the obligatory mortgage-crisis foreclosure signs on every other lawn.

Norwegian shipping policy: Curious contradiction with the Economist

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Who's wrong - me or the Economist? One hesitates to contradict the Economist, but...

Last week, I wrote a short piece describing how Norway's most recent election might impact the country's policies towards the shipping industry. Two of my key points were that domestic politics have little impact on industry policy (as it follows EU policy more or less slavishly) and that the new government would not allow oil exploration of Lofoten (as one coalition party made this a rallying cry).

Now the Economist, in its 50-word summary of the election, more or less contradicts me on both points. With the re-election of the standing government, it says, Norway will seek membership in the EU, and open up for oil exploration in Lofoten.

I have all the respect in the world for the Economist. It's the only magazine I personally subscribe to. And the magazine may very well be right, and I may be dead wrong.

On the other hand, I find their conclusions puzzling. Of the three parties that won another five years in power, exploring for energy resources in Lofoten is anathema to one, and EU membership is anathema to the other. Granted, the third party (which probably wants both things) is the biggest, but it's hard for me to believe they can push the cause in the coalition they've created.

So who's right? Only time will tell.

Concept ships carry dreams, make brands

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Will the shipping industry figure out that it too needs to imagine, inspire?

The auto industry knows the game well: Design a sleek, hot-blooded machine with little concern for practicalities. Unleash a prototype at a show to set fire to consumers' fantasies and get journalists' ink flowing and flash-bulbs popping.

The shipping industry has typically limited its "ooh, ahh" effects to steadily bigger ships (typically male endeavour, that). But back in 2005 Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics changed all that. Its Orcelle zero-emission car-carrying concept ship was the closest the industry had yet come to Detroit Motor Show-thinking.

What an election means to shipping in Norway

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Norwegians voted this past Monday in another election, where much ballyhoo is made over little real difference; if politics is the art of the possible, one doesn't have to be very artful with the possibilities created by Norway's USD 400 billion of surplus wealth. As it happens, the reigning coalition (labour, the socialist left and the centre party) won another four years.

How might this election result impact the shipping industry?

Pirates: Don't fire (on) them. Hire them.

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Take away the RPG launcher, and what's the difference, really?

At first glance, a proposal worthy of Jonathan Swift, hiring young Somalians as cadets has a lot of merit. And it would do more to cut piracy than any number of SEAL snipers cruising the Gulf of Aden.

First of all, you have to credit the pirates' gumption. These sailors are willing to take to the open sea in poorly equipped boats owned and operated by demanding nutcases. Not a few in today's merchant marine feel the same way from time to time.