Peter Georgiopoulos says he will shun the newbuilding market while a $100m vessel faces being made obsolete within five years because of regulations and new fuels.
The shipping entrepreneur, who runs Athens-based United Overseas Group (UOG), told TradeWinds that he has reservations that fuels such as LNG, methanol and ammonia will emerge as clean, safe alternatives on a major scale for the global fleet.
“These are all interim steps … I’m a big believer in interim steps,” he said. “[But] I’m not going to spend $100m on an interim step.”
Georgiopoulos, a former leader of five public shipowners, now has a fleet of product and chemical tankers with UOG aged between nine and 14 years. He said the company might buy some secondhand ships but will not dip into the newbuilding market because of the state of the technology.
“I’ve always tried to be smart and ahead of, you know, the curve and think towards the future. And I think I proved that over a 30-plus-year career,” he said.
He has faith in mankind that a “genius” will emerge with a successful solution to break the alternative fuel and newbuilding logjam.
The industry remains deeply divided on what will emerge in the coming decades. A survey of shipping companies published in April found that about one-third of respondents did not know what fuels they expect to run on in 2030 and 2050.
Responses from the rest suggested that 66% of consumption will remain fuel oil in 2030 before declining to 17% in 2050, according to the study by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation, the Global Maritime Forum and the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping.
The study said the industry should be prepared for a multi-fuel future for the next few decades. The respondents expected more than 10 other fuel choices will be used in 2050, ranging from 17% for green ammonia to 3% for nuclear and 1% for green hydrogen. Blue ammonia, LNG and biodiesel would also be significant parts of the mix.
“That’s why we’re not in a position right now to order ships, because I’m not sure what the long-term fuel is,” said Georgiopoulos.
“Is methanol going to be one of the fuels? I mean, who knows? If it is one of the survivors just like ammonia? I don’t think we know yet.
“I don’t want to order a ship that in five or six years is going to be obsolete. So I don’t know why people are ordering ships today. But again, everybody has their own decision matrix.”
TradeWinds first reported in 2021 that Georgiopoulos is a lead investor in a proposed methanol production plant in the US Gulf under development by Houston-based IGP Methanol.
The plans are currently on the backburner owing to Covid-19-related delays and a decision by then US president Donald Trump that stymied a sale of any completed plant to Chinese investors, according to Georgiopoulos.
Work is continuing but “it’s going to take longer than I anticipated”, he said.
