Page 20: of Marine News Magazine (March 2021)

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OpEd

Decarbonization

All Hands On Deck to Tackle Decarbonization Today

By Karrie Trauth, General Manager, Shell Shipping and Maritime Americas; and Tahir Faruqui, General Manager, Shell Global Downstream LNG

Without action from the shipping sector to decarbonize, the sector will be arguably across the globe—there is a recognized lack of responsible for approximately 17% of global CO2 emissions necessary coastal and inland infrastructure to support an by 2050. And given the scale of the change required, we must immediate transition to net-zero emissions in shipping. address this now. Across the industry, many are wrestling with And new regulations to drive decarbonization of the ship- what steps to take to drive their decarbonization journeys. ping sector have been under discussion for some time. Ad-

Last year, Shell and Deloitte published a joint report, ditionally, the arrangement, layout and operational pro? le

Decarbonizing Shipping: All Hands on Deck, assessing the of the North American tug and barge ? eet provide unique key factors affecting decarbonization of the shipping sec- constraints for the designer when looking to decarbonize. tor. The report set out to understand the views of senior These challenges, among others, have made vessel own- executives from across the sector, including Jones Act own- ers hesitant to invest in retro? tting, or even to order new ers, on the barriers and potential solutions to decarbon- ships. A recent Bloomberg article noted that global orders izing shipping. Its objective was to drive more common of merchant ships have dropped to the lowest in two de- understanding and catalyze action. cades, attributable to a lack of clarity on what will be the

The report highlighted several elements across the in- preferred low-carbon fuels and technologies of the future.

dustry which have emerged to present challenges to decar- Naturally, some degree of caution is warranted. Consid- bonization. For instance, in North America—and perhaps erations including the current global economic conditions, depressed fuel prices, limited fuel carrying space

Q-LNG 4000, and high costs of retro? tting vessels continue to the ? rst offshore LNG bunkering ATB in the U.S. challenge the industry as it works toward full- scale decarbonization. Hydrogen, ammonia and electri? cation are being tested, and it’s probable that many of these won’t be ready for industry use at scale for more than a decade, possibly longer. Put simply, this technology must still be developed, infrastructure to support it must be built, costs must come down and regulations must be put in place to incentivize switching to lower- and zero-carbon fuels.

But the urgency presented by climate change, combined with expected regulatory measures, does not allow the industry to delay in making

Shell 20 | MN March 2021