The Chief Executive Officer, Stéphane Courquin, CMA CGM Asia Pacific threw light on companies’ strategic steps of investing in LNG fuel. He further added that LNG fuel is the best fuel alternative today to remove marine fuel emissions. The company is working on more different arenas to improve emission reduction. LNG fuel is the present need for tomorrow’s air quality preservation. It works as a solution to control marine environment pollution. The company is deeply investing itself to attain the carbon neutrality goal by 2050.
CMA CGM has become the first company that has ordered nine ultra-large LNG dual-fuel cargo container ships with a capacity of 23,000 TEU. It targets to add 44 LNG-powered ships by 2024 in its fleet. Though there have been challenges in incorporating the strategy, the results are gratifying. The customers are welcoming the change and the journey is going on smoothly. The refueling of LNG was done in Singapore. The start of LNG bunkering and keeping it ready for 15,000 TEU dual-fuel vessels till the next year in Marseille, its home base is in cards for the company.
Courquin elaborated CMA CGM’s viewpoint for incorporating LNG that if we need clean air tomorrow, we have to start working. He stated that LNG is a cutting-edge solution for dual fuel that is present for now while the talks of second-generation LNG fuels have started. The company futuristically plans to incorporate second-generation biofuels and bio-methane. The LNG engines that CMA CGM uses take bio-methane as a fuel that has been collected from organic wastes. To achieve the target of carbon neutrality by 2050, the company is investing in long-term energy transition plans.
He goes ahead by saying that to create the first production unit in Marseilles port, CMA CGM is working in alliance with EveRé, Total Energies, and Elengy. The company is carrying on the feasibility study to reduce 67% of Green House Gas emissions. Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and CEO of the CMA CGM Group launched the feasibility study in 2019 that is incorporated under 14 member Energy Coalition for the future. Air Liquide, Rolls-Royce, and Kuehne+Nagel Group are a new addition to the coalition.
The company’s commitment is clearly visible as it has reduced emissions by 4% that is less than the last year, 2020. It is also lower as compared to 2019 when the company reduced fleet emission by 6% in 2019 over 2018. CMA CGM is able to reduce emissions by 49 % per TEU/km since 2008. Courquin says that with such a fast pace, the company will surpass the target emission reduction of 50%. He further said that we planned to reach the limit by 2030 but for CMA CGM there is no limit. He adds pleasingly that it would be much better if they achieve their target goal by 2030 or 2040.
Along with CMA CGM, many other shipping companies and shipping container companies also strive for a better future tomorrow. They are also working continuously to achieve the IMO goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. The container providers are trying to reduce the empty container positioning which reduces the extra movement of containers and vessels. To attain the reduction in carbon emission is the current trend in the shipping industry and shipping container industry.
