The ship cycle starts, and the structural upgrade is good for the domestic head ship enterprises

Limited by the use of ship scenarios, slow sailing and green power are the main solutions for the shipbuilding industry to reduce carbon emissions. "For older ships, it is no longer necessary to carry out large-scale transformation, and carbon can be directly reduced by operational means such as speed reduction in the short term; For ships with modification value, installation of sail power, bubble drag reduction and other devices can reduce resistance, increase power, and achieve energy saving; For newly built ships, we can start to consider green power from the design level." China Shipbuilding Industry Association statistical information work department deputy director Cao Bo said. Slow sailing can effectively reduce the carbon emissions of a single ship, but at the same time reduce the level of capacity. According to a new study published jointly by environmental group Seas At Risk and the European Federation Transport & Environment, a 20% reduction in speed could result in a 24% reduction in sulphur and nitrogen oxide emissions and a significant reduction in black carbon emissions. In the existing studies, it is generally proved that the relationship between fuel consumption and speed is nonlinear, and the daily fuel consumption of a ship is approximately proportional to the cubic speed, while the carbon emissions are directly proportional to the consumption of ship fuel, so the carbon emissions are directly proportional to the cubic speed. However, if we only rely on speed reduction to meet the emission reduction target, on the one hand, the decline in transportation efficiency will put the enterprise at a disadvantage in competition. On the other hand, under the premise of meeting the weekly service frequency, the lower the sailing speed, the longer the cycle time will increase, and additional ships will be needed to deploy to the route. In 2008, the total carbon emission of the global fleet was about 1 billion tons. The IMO carbon reduction plan will be implemented from 2023, assuming that carbon emission is proportional to the third power of the speed of the ship. If carbon emissions of the global shipping industry are reduced by 50% compared with 2008 by 2050, The number of ships, types, traffic volume, sailing mileage, carbon emission technology, etc. do not change every year, and only rely on reducing speed to reduce carbon emissions, then by 2050 the speed needs to be reduced by 16% compared with 2023, in the market for the rigid demand for transport capacity conditions, 2023-50 capacity demand is expected to increase by 16%.

As ship slowdown is likely to lose economic benefits, and CII requirements will become more stringent, in the medium and long term, dismantling and replacing with new energy vessels may be the main path to meet IMO decarbonization regulations. From the economic perspective, the ship's arrival time will be delayed, the delivery time of the goods will be extended, and the related inventory costs, opportunity costs and market costs will be transferred to the shipper. On the other hand, the shipper may choose other shipping companies. Therefore, the ship's speed reduction may reduce the market competitiveness of the shipping company, and there is the risk of losing the supply of goods. Therefore, we believe that slowing down may lead to a loss of economic benefits. In addition, IMO's CII differs from EEXI/EEDI's phasing requirements, and their ratings can be downgraded and tightened over time. According to the current IMO CII emission reduction factor Guide, based on the carbon emission intensity of industry ships in 2019, the reduction factor of ship CII is required to be 5% in 2023 (5% lower than the 2019 level), and then the reduction factor will be increased every year to 11% in 2026. In the future, with the advancement of technology, the requirements may be more stringent, and it may be difficult to meet the long-term assessment at CII by reducing speed alone. As of July 2023, the proportion of new energy ship types in new ship orders has increased to 49.20%. According to Clarksons, the share of new energy vessels in global new ship orders, measured in GT (Gross tonnage), continued to increase from 14.2% in 2018 to 49.20% in July 2023. In the process of the shipping industry's transition from fossil energy to carbon neutral energy, the industry mainly focuses on low-carbon fuels: liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), alcohol fuels (methanol, ethanol, etc.); Decarbonized fuel: Clean energy represented by ammonia, hydrogen, etc., to carry out Marine research and practice to different degrees. At present, LNG has become a major transition fuel with its technological maturity, availability, low cost and other advantages, and in terms of number, LNG vessels account for more than 60% of new energy vessels.

Ammonia fuel has obvious advantages over hydrogen fuel in energy density and storage, and is considered to be the most potential fuel for the shipping industry to move toward the "ultimate ideal" to achieve the goal of decarbonization.