Canadian ports International Maritime Organization ship engine tier forecasts 2015-2050

Abstract

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has established progressively more stringent diesel engine standards for oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions from ocean-going vessels (OGVs, or ships), which are based on a ship’s keel-laid date (KLD) and when a Nitrogen Emissions Control Area (NECA) comes into force. Ships built on or after specific KLD milestone dates are required to meet the engine standards in place at that time, and as a result, newer ships are significantly cleaner than older ones.

Under IMO MARPOL Annex VI Regulation 13, if a ship undergoes a major conversion (involving the replacement of a marine diesel engine with a non-identical marine diesel engine), the standards at the time of replacement will apply. For a vessel transiting the North American NECA, the NOx Tier III standard would be applicable. Importantly, there are no further requirements for existing vessels to meet the more stringent engine standards nor are there requirements for shipping lines to deploy cleaner IMO Tier III vessels (existing or new builds) to a NECA. Thus, the actual emissions benefits remain uncertain without a better understanding of the four Canadian ports fleet engine mix, now and forecasted into the future.

Using IHS Markit (third-party) activity data and ship parameter data, this report analyzes the current fleet composition with respect to IMO engine tiers calling four Canadian ports: Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Montréal, and Halifax. This report also forecasts how long the current world fleet can service future calls for each port before being exhausted and replaced by Tier III ships, which are ships with keels laid on or after 1 January 2016. These engines use aftertreatment technologies to meet an emission limit of 3.4 grams of NOx per kilowatt-hour or better, which are more than 90% cleaner with respect to NOx compared to Tier I ships. This report has identified the following:

• Just 0.5% of the 2019 ship calls to the four Canadian ports were IMO Tier III, a slower-than-expected deployment compared to previous generations of engines.
• Ship owners laid an unprecedented number of keels in 2015, leading up to and just prior to the Tier III deadline and many of these keels still have not been constructed.
• Since 2005, more than 1,000 keels laid still have not been built, and roughly 70% of these ships will be grandfathered from the Tier III standard. This backlog of pre-Tier III ships has delayed deployment of the cleanest Tier III vessels.
• A scenario forecast found that for the four Canadian ports and associated vessel types, Tier III ships are not expected to comprise a substantial part of the fleet until the mid- to late-2040s with the earliest dates in the mid-2030s for only a few vessel types.

This report also has identified significant challenges with using third-party data, rather than data from ports themselves, to conduct such analyses and recommends further study with port-specific call data and vessel forecasts.