Japan Marine United Corporation, Maizuru Shipyard

Imagine a power distribution network where excess renewable energy from hydropower, wind, solar, and nuclear energy is converted to hydrogen and used as transportation fuel in the maritime industry. With the allure of a zero emissions fuel, a number of ship owners are starting to seriously consider hydrogen for newly built vessels. As a bold first step, the country of Norway has provided a number of grants to leading maritime companies to conduct feasibility studies into various aspects of this emerging technology sector. Central to this discussion is “how” hydrogen will be transported from its source to end-users.

International mining company BHP BHP floated a bulk carrier tender for LNG-fueled transport for up to 27 million tonnes of its iron ore.The Melbourne-based resource company said in a release that this is the world’s first bulk carrier tender for LNG-fueled  iron ore vessel.The mining giant is considering LNG as a way to eliminate nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide emissions by launching the world’s first tender for the ships.Rashpal Bhatti, Vice President, Maritime and Supply Chain Excellence said emissions resulting from the transportation and distribution of BHP’s products represent a material source of its value chain emissions (Scope 3).

U.S. oil companies on Monday began restoring some of the more than nearly 74% production shut at U.S. Gulf of Mexico platforms ahead of Hurricane Barry, the U.S. offshore drilling regulator said.There was 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil production off line in the U.S.-regulated areas of the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, about 80,000 barrels less than on Sunday, according to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).Workers also were returning to the more than 280 production platforms that had been evacuated. It can take several days for full production to be resumed after a storm leaves the Gulf of Mexico.

In a collective call to action for the decarbonization of shipping last year, 34 signatory CEOs from the industry made clear that efforts to significantly lower the carbon footprint of shipping presented “biggest technology challenge in the past 100 years”.This statement was not an exaggeration. In fact, the transition to a low-carbon future will take more than an unprecedented commitment to the research and development that traditionally underpins technological advance.  Finding complex solutions that are at once commercially viable, technically feasible

For some years now, the maritime sector has experienced breaches of various computer and information technology (IT) systems.  Primarily, these breaches have been collateral damage.  The maritime sector has almost never been the intended target.  That does not mean that the damage has been minor.  In June 2017, A.P. Moller-Maersk suffered a major cyber-attack.  The malware had been designed by Russian hackers to disrupt the Ukrainian power sector.  Once released, though, it proved to be indiscriminate, infecting IT systems worldwide that had not been kept up to date.  In the case of A.P.