World Maritime News
WMNF 16/04/2025
Topics on MEPC 83
The International Maritime Organization has approved a carbon price for global shipping that would force ships to cut their carbon intensity by 65% by 2040. Countries voted 63-16 on Friday morning in favor of a compromise plan that Pacific Islands and green groups lambasted as too weak to meet IMO green targets, and petrostates decried as too onerous. The two-tier credit trading scheme and fuel standard, known as J9, would force ships to reduce their fuel’s carbon intensity over time. Ships with a GHG intensity higher than the baseline carbon intensity reduction, or Z factor, must pay $380 per tonne of CO2 equivalent on any emissions over the base limit and a penalty of $100 per tonne CO2 equivalent in remedial units (RUs) on any emissions between the base tier and the second tier, called the Direct Compliance Target (DCT). A ship with GHG intensity below the DCT pays no fees and instead generates credits called surplus units (SUs) from below the DCT, which can be banked for two years or sold through an IMO GHG fuel intensity registry. Ships with carbon deficits (using dirty fuel) can trade credits with ships in surplus. This makes it easier for ships lacking access to biofuels to comply. However, it makes the market dynamics hard to predict since we don’t know what DCT-compliant fuels will cost in the future.
Read more: Lloyd’s List1 | Lloyd’s List2 | Lloyd’s List3 | JOC
Trump moves to reclaim US maritime power with new executive order
US President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order to restore American maritime dominance amid escalating trade tensions with China. The “Restoring American Maritime Dominance” order seeks to rebuild the nation’s struggling shipbuilding industry, which produces less than 1% of commercial ships globally while China manufactures about half. The directive mandates that federal agencies develop a Maritime Action Plan within 210 days to provide a strategy with specific actions to restore and create sustained resiliency for the American maritime industry. Among the order’s most significant provisions is establishing a Maritime Security Trust Fund to provide consistent funding for maritime programs. The administration also proposes a shipbuilding financial incentives program to boost private investment in US shipbuilding. The agency has already drafted a proposal to impose exorbitant port fees on China-built ships and companies operating and ordering them. However, earlier this week, USTR Jamieson Greer implied that while the fees will still be implemented, they may be softened amid strong opposition from the business community. The USTR is expected to submit its final plan to the White House by April 17. Shipping companies have warned that if the port fees are enforced, they may reduce calls at US ports and instead reroute cargo through Canada and Mexico for onward transport into America. In response, Trump’s executive order instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security to enforce the collection of the Harbor Maintenance Fee on foreign cargo entering the US to prevent circumvention via the two neighboring countries.
Read more: Lloyd’s List
APM Terminals acquires Panama Canal Railway
APM Terminals has acquired the Panama Canal Railway Corporation from the Canadian Pacific Kansas City and the Lanco Group/Mi-Jack. The 76 km railway runs between Panama’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts and generated $77m worth of revenue in 2024. The Panama Canal Railway is an important component of the country’s cross-isthmus transport system, which is about more than the canal. In addition to transiting the waterway, containerships drop off transshipment cargo at hubs on either coast. The railway connects the Pacific hub of Balboa to the Atlantic hubs of MIT, Colon Container Terminal and Cristobal (the other transshipment hub on the Pacific coast, PSA-Panama, is on the opposite side of the canal to the railway). The railway operates parallel to the canal, serving as a conveyor belt that moves cargo unloaded on the Pacific side to the Atlantic ports and vice versa. Rail transshipment is complemented by cross-isthmus trucking moves, particularly from PSA-Panama. Maersk, the owner of APM Terminals, was a major proponent of this “land bridge” concept during the recent drought.
Read more: Lloyd’s List