This year’s event was focused on the issues of energy crisis and the upcoming environmental regulations that will be imposed in shipping.
The well known shipowner Simeon Palios founder of Diana Shipping gave his perspective for the outlook of the shipping market and explained how the NY listed company Diana Corporation has achieved to expand its fleet and enjoy the trust and confidence of its shareholders amid a turbulent shipping and economic environment.
Former minister Mr. Andreas Andrianopoulos referred to the current energy crisis. He firstly asked who is profiting from the Ukraine war? Russia financially is not losing and unfortunately the west has not used the necessary diplomatic pressure to solve the problem. European tried to impose a cap on the Russian oil however restrictions are not working.
Mr. Laskaridis told that the reality of politics is more complex from what we think. We don’t know what is legal and what illegal regarding the sanctions imposed on Russia. Regarding the cost of the implementation of the environmental regulations and ETS the shipping industry tries to share this huge burden with the commercial operators who charter the vessels and are responsible for the trading of the ships. Costas Stamboulis analyst on energy and geopolitic developments insisted that the impact from the sudden increase on energy prices for Europe is far worse than the other countries of the world. We must note that Europe imports 60% of its energy commodities from other parties of the world. On the other hand U.S. oil and gas producers are not prepared to increase their productivity to help Europe facing a difficult winter.
As result of the oil and gas shortage the tanker freight rates will remain high because of the sudden increase of seaborne trade.
Mr. Panos Zachariadis referred to the latest developments on the alternative fuels. He said the hydrogen coming from NG and ammonia coming from hydrogen and all these fuels are emitting remarkable CO2 and methane. In addition to these there is no bunkering infrastructure and huge safety and technical concerns are addressed. The value of existing infrastrure is 2,5 trillion dollars so it is very difficult to replace all these tremendous storage facilities with alternative fuels stations in all over the world.
He finally suggested methanol from all renewable sources as the safest and green enough solution as limited retrofit is needed to be adapted on the current propulsion. The oil companies surely are investing on renewables but they are not rushing as the main business which is the supply of oil and gas flourish.
Mr. Stavros Hatzigrigoris in his speech remarked that carbon capture technology is a reliable method of CO2 abatement which is continuously developed and improved.
In his presentation, Professor Mr. Merikas stated that according to studies, inflation and the accuracy of raw materials are expected to bring a recession in the world economy in the coming years, but shipping rates will be high due to increased demand.
Regarding Poseidon rules, Mr. Laskaridis emphasized that for responsible and serious shipowners it is not an obstacle to secure the financing of their investments.
He also pointed out that Europe must maintain the European fleet under European flags and not put obstacles to improve competitiveness because European shipping risks migrating to other shipping centers around the world.
At the end of the conference, Mr. Emmanuel Vordonis referred to the need to stop the Russia-Ukraine war. Sanctions set us back decades by intensifying carbon consumption and this is because the European leadership is not responding to the challenges. What can we do? We should push for an end to the war and even the religious leaders should take action in this direction, underlined Mr. Bordonis.
The conference closed with an award to Mr. Panos Laskaridis, who has enhanced our War Navy with support ships and financed large-scale repairs.
ELNAVI Newsletter
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