Enviormental policy: Heavy poluting ships not welcome in north European waters

[Something completely different]

Starting next year, ships fueled only with heavy oil will no longer be allowed to sail Europe's North and Baltic seas. But cleaner alternatives are costly. Liquid natural gas could be the solution.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/busi...16811.html

[Captain Colostomy]

And with this, renewed pressure for America to push through the Keystone Pipeline? Fracking has caused enough issues as it is.

Where does Europe source it's natural gas, and is it a large source?

[Something completely different]

Where does Europe source it's natural gas, and is it a large source?

There is natural gas in Germany and Switzerland, but there are also enormous amounts of natural gas in Poland which have only recently been discovered and which dwarf the resources of other European countries.

Germany and Switzerland do not use fracking to gain natural gas because the public is against it, in Germany no politician would ever dare to enforce policies which oppose public opinion and lobbying is hardly possible in Germany, and Switzerland is an almoust completly direct democracy which means that public opinion always directs policy.

In Poland, fraking will soon be used. Poland sees this as an opportunity to gain wealth through being Europes main source of gas and to finaly end it`s own and Europes dependency on Russian gas.

[Anomalocaris]

This is impractical. Using natural gas to power large ocean going ships is at early stages of development. Proper storage and safety of using nature gas for large marine ships is mot mature. Infrastructure, procedure and safety standards for fueling ships with nature gas does not exist. It would take 10-15 years going at full speed to build up the inventory of LNG powered ships before it can even be feasible to transition major shipping routes and ports to exclusive LNG power.

[NoraBrimstone]

I approve of this news!

[Crossless2.0]

This is impractical. Using natural gas to power large ocean going ships is at early stages of development. Proper storage and safety of using nature gas for large marine ships is mot mature. Infrastructure, procedure and safety standards for fueling ships with nature gas does not exist. It would take 10-15 years going at full speed to build up the inventory of LNG powered ships before it can even be feasible to transition major shipping routes and ports to exclusive LNG power.

Chuck is absolutely right. I work as a cargo ship agent on the Mississippi River, and there is currently no way, no infrastructure in place, to fuel cargo vessels with natural gas. Furthermore, many cargo fleets are composed of ships that are 15-20 years old. The owners will simply not retrofit these ships. It's not remotely cost effective. And new vessels are prohibitively expensive for most ship owners in the current market.

When these restrictions go into effect, vessels will need to load low-sulphur marine gas oil at an ever-increasing premium to meet the standard. As the article points out, this will definitely have a short-term negative impact on the ports that depend on this traffic. Also, from the owners' perspective, time charterers who will likely restrict their activities to areas not covered by these emissions restrictions will be relatively more attractive as partners than those who will operate repeat voyages in the affected waters.

A typical cargo vessel of the sort I usually deal with has a daily operating cost of about $30,000 (that's the cost if it just sits at anchor, let alone burns fuel). Now vessels moving in northern waters will be asked to assume an additional 50% cost per metric ton of fuel burned. The shipping industry is a very tight market these days, and this will be a deal killer for many players. Much of the cargo traffic will just go elsewhere.