The phone call was really nice and pleasant. The guy sounded quite experienced and knew the subject. But when I asked him about emissions reporting software, he said laconically:

“You know, we do it with Excel. We can handle that. We don’t need any extra software for this.”

Since 2018, seagoing ships have had to report their CO₂ emissions when calling at European ports. Since the beginning of this year, shipping companies have also had to purchase emission allowances, so-called EUAs, for their ships’ emissions.

In other words, CO₂ costs money.

Now, FuelEU Maritime will come into force on January 1, 2025. The new EU regulation is putting pressure on the shipping industry to gradually make its vessels greener. In other words, the amount of CO₂ emitted must be systematically reduced. For many shipping companies, one solution for staying within the permitted emission limits is the use of biofuels. However, FuelEU comes with some tricky reporting requirements.

First: From January onwards, every ship larger than 5,000 GT will no longer report fuel consumption only as a total per fuel type. Instead, consumption will have to be divided by consumer. Rather than simply adding together consumption from the main engine and auxiliary engines, all consumers, such as main engines, auxiliary engines and boilers, will have to be recorded and reported separately.

Second: When biofuel is used, it can be bunkered in different mixing ratios. Each mixture has its own specific emission factors for CO₂, NOx and SOx.

This means that, in the future, it will no longer be enough to simply bunker and consume MDO or HFO. Consumption from each fuel bunker will have to be considered separately for each aggregate. By the way, this also applies to ships below 5,000 GT as soon as they use biofuels. This reporting task will create a lot of additional work for crews on board. Sure, you can do all of that with Excel. But are you really sure you want to keep sending spreadsheets back and forth?

By the way, the guy on the phone wanted to think about it again. After all, there was still a bit of time…

If you want to get rid of Excel sheets, drop us a line. Or book your video meeting here: