The European Commission's draft regulation formally listing Morocco's Tanger Med and Egypt's East Port Said as major transshipments ports inches forward with the closure of a consultation procedure on 11 February.
If the regulation is adopted with no changes, only transshipment at Tanger Med and East Port Said will tie in operators to the EU's law obliging cuts in maritime greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, notably through cleaner fuels including LNG, biofuels and green ammonia.
The listing of just Tanger Med and East Port Said is a partial solution to the continuing threat of carbon leakage for the European Sea Ports Organisation (Espo). The industry body further points to serious risks to the future of EU ports by only including ports exceeding a 65pc transshipment share into the EU, out of total container traffic. That will only capture a "small" part of evasion behaviour, said Espo. And the EU ports industry points to the ramping up of extra-EU investments, whereby shipping lines "are preparing their way out of the system".
"If European ports are losing business and, at the same time, you don't have any positive impacts on emission reduction, then it's maybe not the way to go," said Espo secretary general Isabelle Ryckbost. She noted additional stops by ships now being made in the UK. "It's not clear what is leading to [the] transfer," Ryckbost told Argus.
Aimed at boosting lower and zero-carbon maritime fuels, the EU's FuelEU Maritime regulation is designed to oblige ship operators traveling into, out of, and within EU territorial waters to reduce their GHG intensity on a lifecycle basis by 2pc in 2025. The reduction jumps to 6pc from 2030 and gradually reaches 80pc by 2050, all against a reference value of 91.16g of CO2 equivalent/MJ.
The commission's draft implementing regulation on transshipment ports necessarily follows a similar solution to the one laid out in the bloc's reformed emissions trading system, which expanded the scope of the scheme to include maritime emissions. This foresees that only 50pc of a ship's energy used on voyages to or from Tanger Med and East Port Said to the EU port would fall under FuelEU Maritime obligations. For the last leg from Tanger Med and East Port Said to the EU port, ships would need to comply fully with FuelEU Maritime GHG intensity cuts.
