EMEA News
Bureau Veritas: Five-to-ten Year Timeframe for new Technology to Bite
The effects of new technology will really start to kick in over the next five-to-ten years as shipping moves towards decarbonisation, classification society Bureau Veritas (BV) has said.
Shipowners will face "multiple pathways" as they consider how best to achieve their goals said senior executives gathered at a BV event in London yesterday who added: "We welcome the challenge."
The society classifies two thirds of the current LNG bunkering fleet and a quarter of the gas-fuelled fleet by number of vessels, according to its lead on global technology Panos Koutsourakis.
Although vessel numbers in both categories are small, the society is well-placed to meet the expected rise in demand for the alternative bunker fuel, Koutsourakis said.
But it would be wrong to focus solely on fuel, said sales and marketing director Gijsbert de-Jong as "a ship's emissions' profile will see technical, design, proplulsion and operational" innovation as well as in fuel use and type.
De-Jong picked out one idea, very slow steaming, which he said could turn conventional ship design on its head, to illustrate the range of projects in play.
"These are the lines that will guide our thinking," he said.
Matthieu De Tugny, who is the incoming head of the society's marine and offshore section, said moving from two-dimensional drawings to three-dimensional digital representation in ship design was a "big change".
He said much of the development work in this area had been done and it was entering an experimental phase.
BV's head office is in Paris, France with a turnover, in 2017, of EUR 4.7 billion ($5.3bn). Marine and offshore accounts for 8% of its activity while buildings and infrastructure makes up 24%.
