Houston — Transportation energy demand is expected to increase by 25% over the next 20 years, mostly driven by an increase in commerce and trade, ExxonMobil's Marine Fuels Venture Manager Luca Volta said at a conference in Houston on Thursday.
Innovations are needed in the marine fuel mix to meet this new transportation energy demand.
This new fuel mix is critical to meeting the world's energy needs in the near future, Volta said at a shipping conference hosted by the Norwegian Consulate General on the issue of decarbonizing the maritime industry.
"The greatest challenge for the marine industry in the future is energy density, when referring to fuels," he said. Energy density refers to how much energy is contained in a standard unit of mass.
The fuels of the future must be "underpinned by safety, scalability, reliability, and commercial and technical viability," Volta said.
These changes are a result of IMO 2020 coming up on the horizon. The International Maritime Organization has lowered the amount of sulfur that ships can emit as they burn bunker fuel on the high seas to 0.5% from 3.5%.
IMO 2020 rules will go in to effect in January 2020, as an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping, eventually hoping to phase them out all together by the end of the century.
-- Humza Jamal, Humza.Jamal@spglobal.com
-- Edited by Kshitiz Goliya, newsdesk@spglobal.com
European Shipping Seminar | November 27, 2019 | Athens, Greece
The event brings together industry representatives and experts to discuss market volatility and how the 2020 sulfur cap will change the world of shipping.
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