Editorial of Ship&Offshore 3/2023: It’s that season again

By the time this issue of Ship&Offshore was being finalised, some of our publishing house colleagues had just returned from their main and most important show – transport logistic in Munich. Here, too, the pandemic had caused cancellations and postponements and so this was the first occasion on which they could meet under normal arrangements. And – so we were told – the mood was exuberant, the conversations and exchanges about the expansion of sustainable modes of transport, reliable supply chains and many other logistics topics were extensive and lasting.

It was just like last September, when the maritime industry met in person at SMM in Hamburg after a four-year break. It was striking there too, just how important it is to hold face-to-face meetings and discuss urgent and often complex issues in detail and to learn particularly about the many new technologies and services.

Never before has global transport infrastructure faced so many fundamental challenges – digitalisation, ship autonomy, new fuels, and bunkering infrastructure that is still under development and not yet widely available. And perhaps most crucially of all, a serious and growing shortage of suitably trained marine personnel – both at sea and on shore. Access to suitable human resources in the coming years may become a ship manager’s biggest headache.

So let’s look ahead: up next are the Nor-Shipping exhibition in Oslo and the CIMAC Congress in Busan, South Korea (originally scheduled for last June). Two main events that will once again bring the industry together and draw its attention to the most pressing topics.

At Nor-Shipping, which organisers say will set new records this year, a key focus will be strategies for international shipping to reduce its carbon footprint and meet self-imposed climate targets. But alongside the many promising initiatives which can cut greenhouse gas emissions of existing ships by up to a quarter, there are wider issues such as energy security in Europe, a suitable regulatory framework for digital systems and greater autonomy and, as already noted, the human factor.

Meanwhile, just a few days later, as many of us gather in Busan, the discussion will become focused on the marine fuels of the future, new combustion technologies, and well-to-wake carbon intensity assessments. As Peter Müller-Baum told Ship&Offshore in a recent interview, shipping’s observers in the wider world view the industry’s initiatives to achieve zero emissions as the principal goal.

In addition, the focus stays on China: in relation to the protectionism of the domestic shipbuilding industry but of course also the geopolitical developments in the South China Sea. The questions remain: how can we reduce our dependencies on China in a timely and sustainable manner in order to be better prepared for future eventualities? How can we strengthen the local economy – with political support, of course – to be competitively placed in the current field of tension? And how can we attract the right young talents to safeguard local know-how?

So there is much to do and discuss. Of course, these two weeks in June will not produce any easy answers. There are none of these. We do recognise, however, that the status quo must change. Through meetings and widescale collaboration between many of shipping’s brightest minds, we will focus on finding new pathways and solutions for to the many challenges that face maritime transport today.