The world is full of enthusiasm. The power of "profit" has opened the era of ship transportation. When the "Coal Age" exited the historical stage, marine fuel oil began to play an important role, and promoted the ship transportation into the heyday, especially in recent years, the market conditions are not good, all kinds of new ships, large ships emerge endlessly, labor costs increase, freight Continued to fall, fuel costs have become the key to shipowners' profitability. So, what role will future fuels play in global shipping trade?

Change and change

The ancients used the phrase "monthly halo and wind, and the foundation is moist and rainy" to metaphorically predict the direction of development through certain signs. Predicting the future is to better adapt to and control the future and improve the ability to adapt to changes. The same is true for the shipping industry. As an important part of the shipping industry's operations, the forecast of future fuel development is naturally indispensable. As Tom Boatley, Director of Global Marine Business of Lloyd's Register of Shipping (LR), said, the shipping industry is experiencing a Field changes, managing the growing operating costs of “Today” and meeting the cost-effectiveness of meeting environmental requirements require ship operators to make correct predictions for “Tomorrow”. Undoubtedly, fuel is one of the most critical elements of market operations at this stage, and fuel cost control will directly affect profit margins. Various organizations around the world have also forecasted global energy for different time periods in the next 10 years and 20 years. Among them, Lloyd's also released the "2030 Global Marine Fuel Development Trend" for the shipping industry. So, what is the basis for this report's forecast and what kind of analysis method is used?

First, the entire analysis is based on four major ship types, including container ships, bulk carriers, general cargo ships and tankers. Why choose these four ship types? The report points out that the fuel consumption of the above four major ship types accounts for about 70% of the total fuel consumption of the global shipping industry.

At the same time, the analysis and forecast also made three assumptions about the control of the shipping industry in 2030: First, all external control and control situation is basically unchanged, called the status Quo; Second, the scope of control is global, called the world The common scenario (Global Common); the third is that the world is in control of each other, and each country has its own rules of control, called the competition nations. These three scenarios represent different development scenarios that may occur in the world shipping industry in 2030, and may gradually become more global or more localized by the current commercialization.

Based on the above ship types and assumptions, the report assesses the development potential of a variety of available fuels, including traditional and alternative fuels. Conventional fuels refer to marine fossil fuels. Representative fuels are marine distilled oil (marine diesel and marine gasoline) and residual oils, heavy fuel oils and low-sulfur heavy oils of different compositions. Alternative energy refers to liquefied natural gas, methanol and hydrogen energy, and biological substitutes.

The study concluded that the future fuel must have four characteristics: one must be available to the ship; the second must be cost-effective enough; the third must have to compete with existing and upcoming energy technologies. Competitive enough; fourth, it must be able to meet current and future environmental requirements.

So, what are the different characteristics of the future prospects of different fuels under three different scenarios?

Three patterns

First, under the current status model, assuming no major changes in trade, the economy has shown steady growth, rapid changes in control and control do not exist, and shipping will develop, but to a limited extent. If 0.5% of the low-sulfur oil limit is still implemented in 2025, heavy fuel oil will still account for more than half of the total fuel share by 2030.

For most fleets, especially in the oil industry, heavy oil is still considered the most cost-effective option. There will be a considerable proportion of fleets, mainly old ones, relying on marine diesel and marine gasoline to meet ECA requirements. Perhaps this is not the best option, but for some ships, this is still the only achievable technology choice. Between 2020 and 2025, the proportion of low-sulfur heavy oil use will increase, and in 2030, the proportion of alternative fuels will change significantly.

LNG applications will gradually increase, starting with chemical tankers and product tankers, followed by bulk carriers and general cargo ships. In 2030, chemical tankers and product tankers will account for 30% of the total. LNG will be more suitable for small vessels due to fuel price and storage cost issues. Although there will be some container ships with LNG storage tanks, the proportion in the entire fleet is small.

Under the “global sharing” scenario, we assume that there is a uniform requirement for global fuel sulfur content, based on this rule, and the main reason for the continued use of heavy oil fuel. Different from maintaining the current status model, due to the low sulfur heavy oil price, the proportion of high and low sulfur heavy oil use will not be too large, on the contrary, more investment will be added to the technology such as scrubber equipment.

The carbon emission policy will be more stringent, the use of hydrogen energy will increase, it will account for 9% of non-traditional fuels in 2030, and it will rise sharply in 2050, and it will have a large share of all ship fuels. The replacement of traditional fuels by LNG and hydrogen can first occur in bulk carriers, chemical tankers and product tankers. That is to say, under the “global sharing” scenario, significant growth in international trade may promote the use of LNG and hydrogen fuel.

In the “national competition” mode, the report gives the smallest share of LNG applications, while the traditional heavy oil report gives 60% of the data. Compared with the “maintaining the status quo” model, marine diesel and marine gasoline will have a smaller share from 2025. Due to the characteristics of their respective regulations, regulatory uncertainty and increasing barriers have added a strong protectionism. The application of LNG is not very clear. Under the “national competition” mode, the stability of the control rules and the attractive price are required, so the traditional heavy oil has an advantage in price.

Compared with the first two scenarios, LNG will have a strong growth in the application of chemical tankers and product tankers. By 2030, the share will reach 15%. Similar trends will occur in other ship types, but in the tanker industry, the share of traditional heavy oil applications is very large. This suggests that the market share of non-traditional fuels comes from traditional fuel oil prices and emissions legislation, rather than independent commodity growth forecasts and related transportation needs. In general, although the market share of heavy oil has decreased, the total use has increased and has not decreased. In 2030, the demand for heavy oil will increase by 23% compared with 2010, which has no positive impact on controlling the greenhouse gas emissions of ships.

New energy alternative

According to "2030 Global Marine Fuel Development Trends", nearly half or two-thirds of tankers, bulk carriers and container ships will continue to use heavy oil by 2030, as LR environmental consultant Dimitris Argyros said, from relying on heavy oil to The use of alternative fuels will be a longer transition process.

What is the basis for this conclusion? We can see the leopard from two aspects. First, from the perspective of the use of heavy oil, the research report believes that heavy fuel oil is still used before 2030. In the “maintaining the status quo” scenario, it accounts for about 47% of the market share. In the “global” situation. , accounting for about 58% of the share, in the "national competition" scenario, accounting for about 66% of the share; Second, from the share of the use of alternative fuels for each ship type, chemical tankers and product tankers may become the first ship to use LNG fuel, In the “maintaining the status quo” scenario, LNG accounts for approximately 31% of the total fuel consumption of the ship. However, in terms of other ship types, the development prospects of 11% of the use of LNG have not been realized in 2010. "2030 Global Marine Fuel Development Trends" believes that in 2030, global ship energy consumption is expected to double, of which new fuels will grow faster than heavy oil.

In general, the replacement of existing heavy fuel oil by new marine fuels will take many years. It is not feasible to completely subvert the composition of existing ship fuels in the next 16 years. LR said that before 2030, heavy oil was still fueled by ships. An important part of. Therefore, the proportion of heavy oil used in the future will not necessarily decrease, nor will it be reduced.