Australia is the world’s largest dry bulk exporting country and a sizeable importer of wet commodities. This makes the connected shipping business a significant contributor to Australia’s total carbon footprint. In 2019 alone, tanker and dry bulk vessels calling Australian ports emitted approximately 44 million tonnes of CO2 on the voyage to and from Australia. This is equivalent to the CO2 emissions from 19.5 million light vehicles, which corresponds to the total number of motor vehicles on Australian roads today.
The shipping industry has become increasingly specialised over time, with dry bulk vessels transporting dry bulk cargoes and tanker vessels transporting tanker cargoes. The disadvantage of these solutions is their inability to cater for the actual trade flows in many trades, including to/from Australia. Essentially, they end up sailing long distances empty and emitting large quantities of CO2 without transporting any cargo.
Addressing these inefficiencies and waste, Klaveness Combination Carriers ASA’s (KCC) has developed unique vessels which perform the same transportation work of both a standard tanker vessel and a dry bulk vessel. This allows KCC’s vessels to combine the shipments for tanker cargo customers in one direction with shipments for dry bulk cargo customers in the other direction. As a result, this fleet emits up to 40 per cent less emissions per transported tonne of cargo than standard vessels, in line with the 2030 decarbonisation targets for the shipping industry set by UN’s International Maritime Organization.
CEO of KCC, Engebret Dahm said KCC’s main ambition is to make seaborne transportation more efficient and offer its customers the most cost-efficient solution to substantially reduce carbon emissions from their seaborne supply chains.
He added that KCC has serviced Australian customers for more than 30 years transporting 40 to 50 per cent of Australia’s import of liquid caustic soda in combination with exports of various dry bulk commodities as alumina, salt, and iron ore. The Australian petroleum industry is also a target market for KCC with the introduction of the next generation of combination carriers, the CLEANBU with the last of eight vessels being delivered within the first half of 2021.
KCC has focused on addressing the petroleum industry’s concerns regarding contamination from previous dry bulk cargoes when designing its CLEANBU vessels. Through the smooth design of the vessels’ cargo tanks and advanced and efficient cleaning equipment, the vessels have exceptional cleaning capabilities.
“We believe the CLEANBUs design together with strict and well proven cleaning procedures deliver a better cleaning performance and has a lower risk of cargo contamination than standard tanker vessels. We are gaining acceptance for the vessels from oil companies and oil traders around the world.”
Mr Dahm added that the CLEANBUs have over the last five months made three successful shipments of clean petroleum products to Australia, and KCC targets to grow the business with the Australian petroleum industry going forward.
Mr Dahm believes all industries, including the petroleum industry, will be expected to report on the emission from their shipping activities as part of their Scope 3 emissions and start working on cutting their shipping emissions.
In October 2020, 14 of the worlds’ largest shipping users including some of the worlds’ largest oil companies and oil traders like Shell, Total, Equinor, Trafigura and Gunvor established the Sea Cargo Charter (SCC) and KCC was one of two shipping companies being a founding signatory. Mr Dahm said SCC signatories are committing to transparently report their carbon alignment based on a standardised reporting which properly measures the carbon efficiency of the transportation work and follows the decarbonisation trajectory established by IMO.
“We believe SCC will establish the right basis to improve the carbon intensity of shipping activities which will lead to charterers seeking the most cost-efficient solutions in order to meet their shipping decarbonisation targets,” he said.
“As such, KCC is well positioned to assist the petroleum industry to decarbonise its shipping business.”he concluded.
