PANOS ZACHARIADIS

“Our strategy always included, apart from reliable services, an environmentally sustainable operation”

Panos Zachariadis is a Mechanical Engineer (BSc) and Naval Architect and Marine Engineer (MSE) from the University of Michigan with a 38-year experience in shipping.

He has served for years as Marine Superintendent in New York, after periods of shipbuilding supervision in Japan and sea service in bulk carriers and oil tankers.

He is Technical Director of Atlantic Bulk Carriers since 1997 and a member of the Greek Delegation to IMO since 2004, having contributed to the development of several well-known regulations (e.g. GBS, PSPC, FSA) and the prevention of others (e.g. double hull bulk carriers).

In cooperation with major Korean shipyards he has applied numerous energy saving ideas, some of which have become industry standards.

He is a member of Technical Committees of several classification societies, UGS and Hellenic Chamber of Shipping, BIMCO Marine Committee, BoD HELMEPA and MARTECMA. He has written several technical guides, journal papers and articles and has been honored with several Shipping Awards for his contributions to shipping.

Mr Panos Zachariadis states: «This company culture of “Always do the right thing” rewards honesty, quality performance and strives to meet the needs of all its people: crew, shore personnel and clients alike. The vision is to continue and always improve in all areas».

Mr Panos Zachariadis says: «We do not restrict ourselves only to the reliable transportation of bulk cargo but we aim to assist our customers and partners in all aspects of the shipping chain, including sourcing of critical products such as grain, sugar, ores, bauxite, fertilizers and project cargo and to also effectively address limitations in production and storage capacity».

Mr Zachariadis remembers the beginning of his career «I always wanted to be a naval architect since I was fascinated by ships. I was fortunate to get my first employment with this company, right after graduation, as a young engineer for their new building program in Japan back in 1983».

Mr Zachariadis describes in the interview all the actions he did in the IMO committee as a member of the Greek delegation with his first involvement in the historic reversal of the IMO decision to build all bulk carriers as double hulls.

«It was the first time in history such reversal happened at the adoption stage, after it had already passed the approval stage, and the first time in recent history that a vote of member states had to be used at IMO to reach the decision».

Mr Panos Zachariadis points out that «We are always operating very well maintained ships, designed and built to our own standards, featuring increased safety and environmental aspects, exceeding by far the applicable regulations».

Mr Panos Zachariadis also mentioned «For many years now I have been pointing out that, just because hydrogen and ammonia do not emit any CO2 when burned, it does not mean they are green. 95% of hydrogen production comes from natural gas through a very carbon-intensive process. I am glad that, finally, this is becoming common knowledge i.e. that there is good green hydrogen (from electrolysis using renewable electricity) and blue or gray (bad) hydrogen from natural gas».

According to Mr Panos Zachariadis “I must do something” solves more problems than “something must be done”

Interview to: Georgia Ermidi

Mr. Zachariadis you are for many years the Technical Director of Atlantic Bulk Carriers. Atlantic Bulk Carriers Management, Ltd. is a Marshall Islands company with offices in Piraeus and operates bulk carriers of Supramax and Ultramax size. The company has a strong presence in international shipping with long experience in providing safe and dependable transportation worldwide. Talk to us about ABCML and its history.

ABCML indeed has a very long and stable history of nearly 100 years. Our founder, Mr. George Coumantaros, believed that shipping should not be viewed in isolation but as an integral part of the industrial supply chain, so he strove to provide efficient and highly Innovative logistics solutions for his industrial clients. He was a pioneer in the use of self-discharging bulk carriers and implemented unique transshipment operations in many underdeveloped areas of the world. We are always operating very well maintained ships, designed and built to our own standards, featuring increased safety and environmental aspects, exceeding by far the applicable regulations. Once employed by us, our crews stay with us for all their careers and, because of our many identical sister ships, they become extremely knowledgeable and experienced in operating our specific ships. All this has established an impeccable reputation as to our quality of service, because of the near absence of ship delays or breakdowns. In turn, this good performance of service has led to strategic partnerships with major charterers.

Which are the major activities of the company and which strategy do you follow?

We do not restrict ourselves only to the reliable transportation of bulk cargo but we aim to assist our customers and partners in all aspects of the shipping chain, including sourcing of critical products such as grain, sugar, ores, bauxite, fertilizers and project cargo and to also effectively address limitations in production and storage capacity. We have been involved successfully in some very difficult projects in the past in South America, where we practically had to build the port area and the transshipment areas by ourselves and coordinate the flow of cargo with the barges from the mine, etc. Our strategy always included, apart from reliable services, an environmentally sustainable operation. Lately, we have become members of the “Getting to Zero Coalition” but we always pushed shipyards to modify the design of our ships for better fuel consumption even decades back when nobody else cared much about it. The modified bows we applied, the derated engines and the many other engineroom features to save on fuel consumption, are now common in ship designs.

What is the cost of your dedication to providing high-quality services?

Certainly high-quality has a cost. For example, we always seriously upgrade the designs of our ships and, in most cases, we design our ships jointly with the shipyard for increased safety, reduced need for future repairs and reduced fuel consumption. But, in the long run, the benefits outweigh the cost. Apart from retaining our excellent reputation, the prevention of wear or damages by specifying, for example, robust engines and deck cranes results in minimized repair costs. In addition, full and complete maintenance during dry docks, ensures trouble-free service between the dry docks.

Your moto is “Our limit is the Sea”. What is the company's vision?

The high moral values of the founder of the company, now in its third generation, is the guide for everyone at the company. This company culture of “Always do the right thing” rewards honesty, quality performance and strives to meet the needs of all its people: crew, shore personnel and clients alike. The vision is to continue and always improve in all areas.

What are your major career turning points in your life?

I always wanted to be a naval architect since I was fascinated by ships. I was fortunate to get my first employment with this company, right after graduation, as a young engineer for their new building program in Japan back in 1983. After that, I sailed with the company's ships, including a tanker which we operated at that time, and that was an invaluable experience for my later duties ashore. Another major turning point was my involvement with IMO starting in 2004 when they wanted to make bulk carriers double hulled and I stuck ever since. And of course, the various shipping awards that I have received hold a special part in my heart and give me strength to continue. I have been fortunate to always have the company's support in all these endeavors. The company always wants to help, as much as it can, Greek shipping in general.

You mentioned that since 2004 you take part in the IMO committees as a member of the Greek delegation, with your first involvement in the historic reversal of the IMO decision to build all bulk carriers as double hulls. Which are the facts and your actions prior to this decision?

Indeed it was a historic IMO reversal for many reasons. It was the first time in history such reversal happened at the adoption stage, after it had already passed the approval stage, and the first time in recent history that a vote of member states had to be used at IMO to reach the decision. IMO always reaches its decisions by consensus. Bringing a matter to actual vote was unheard off. But to start from the beginning, it is true that in the 90s there were many bulk carrier losses and IMO wanted to do something about it, so they added Solas regulations requiring strengthening of the first bulkhead for existing ships and all bulkheads for new ships. The aim was to prevent failure of the bulkheads when water comes into the hold, because even with water in one hold the ship stays afloat. But if the bulkhead fails and water gets from one hold to another, the ship sinks. After that regulation, bulk carriers became much safer.

Then someone came up with the idea that a double hull may prevent water coming into the hold in case of collision, like the tankers, which were already required to be double hull. As you understand, the shipyards liked this idea very much. They saw the opportunity to have to rebuild the whole bulker fleet, if double hulls now became mandatory. Soon Japan, the UK and others made their own voluminous studies (called Formal Safety Assessments - FSA) and submitted them to IMO, purporting that they showed that double hull bulk carriers were a) safer than single hulls and b) cost-effective.

IMO makes new regulations in various stages; First a long study submission and discussion period and then a two-step adoption process where in one meeting session the new rule is “approved” by the Committee and in the next meeting the rule is “adopted” after which it becomes regulation. After a regulation is “approved”,its adoption at the next meeting is considered just a formality. I came into this after I read in the papers that IMO had “approved” the new rule to make all new bulk carriers double hulled starting with those to be built in 2007. My concerns were purely technical. Being a naval architect and knowing the types of partial or full double hull bulkers that were already started to be built in Japan, I knew that a) double hull bulkers are not similar to double hull tankers (for which there is a good argument to be double how) and b) the absence of construction regulations for double hull bulkers was already exploited by Japanese shipyards building them with very thin plates, certainly not safer than the Solas-reinforced single hulls. In fact, the reason the Japanese started to build double-hulled bulkers at that time, was to avoid the new Solas regulations for single hulls and thus to avoid the extra steel weight. Anyone familiar with ships can understand that if a double hull ship, which has two extra longitudinal bulkheads for 3/4ths of its length, has the same or less lightship weight (steel weight) than a single hull ship, something is wrong, something gives. That something was the paper thin plating used in the double hulls since, as I said, there were no construction rules for such ships and each shipyard could do what they saw fit. In addition, colleagues, who already operated double hull bulk carriers, reported many problems of wastage in the narrow double hull spaces, which were nearly impossible to maintain since you do not have the space to move in there. So we, technical people and bulker operators, knew that this was a proposal that would set bulk carrier safety back.

The Greek Marine Technical Managers Association (Martecma) was the first technical body to voice concerns in the press. The Union of Greek Shipowners knew that, apart from the safety issues, a two-tier market would emerge where all existing (perfectly safe) single hull ships would not be favored by the market. But we had two huge “scientific” studies already submitted to IMO, one by the UK jointly with IACS and one by Japan. You understand when IACS says to IMO “double hulls are safer” people listen. And when I say “huge” studies I mean that each one consisted of 3 - 4 thick (encyclopedia-size) volumes. Of course, nobody would read these studies (it would take weeks to) so they came with summaries of few pages that basically said “here is our study that shows that double hulls are safer”. But we, the actual operators of ships, knew that this cannot be so. So the UGS decided to hire an expert in such studies, from the University of Glasgow, to do our own FSA but to also look at the other two studies to understand how they arrived at their conclusions. I was the main assistant to the expert and I think I may be one of three persons in the world that read every page of these studies submitted to IMO. And I include the authors because these studies are not written by one person. Each author writes a section only depending on his expertise. The sections are collected and put together by the editor. My task was huge with the deadline in January or early February of 2004 to submit the Greek FSA for the crucial IMO meeting of May 2004. I remember Christmas and New Year's Eve’s I was studying those damn FSAs!

And then the “Eureka” point. We saw that the actual data in their FSAs did not support the results in their summaries. In fact, their data lead to opposite conclusions (that single hulls were safer) and clearly supported our practical experience. So the best way we had was to turn their own studies against them and dispute their findings based on their own data. We highlighted in our study all these discrepancies and submitted them to IMO. We even built a mock-up of a double hull and put a person inside trying to do some paint maintenance in these very narrow spaces and had that video with us to show to whoever was interested at IMO. When I got to IMO that May of 2004, ready to debate the issue, I realized something I should have known from before. People do not like to read studies! So it was boiling down to “should we believe you or IACS?”

During the first week of that IMO meeting, while other issues were discussed, all members of the Greek delegation were trying to enlist support from other countries. But it was late in the game. The issue was on the agenda for nearly two years and many had already committed their position. The big day would be the Monday of the second week, where the matter would be discussed and decided. We were not very hopeful about the outcome despite our efforts to educate people. So we went to our hotels that Friday trying to rest for the weekend. But of course I couldn't rest. I could not believe IMO was on the verge of such a wrong decision. And then I had an idea. What if they could see with their own eyes what I knew? Deep buried in the annexes of the IACS-UK FSA were some bar charts, comparing the past defects of single and double hull bulk carriers, where clearly the double hull defects were much more. I rushed to find an open copy shop in London on Sunday morning and I produced 300 one-page fliers, showing those different bar charts with some pictures of double hull bulkers with huge holes on their sides and the question “Are those the ships you want to make mandatory?”

The next morning, the discussion was scheduled for right after the morning coffee break. With the approval of the delegation's head, Mr. Karkatzos, I snuck into the empty plenary during the break and left a flier at each delegate's seat. When the delegates came in, I could see everyone studying the flier. I think that was the turning point. The debate was heated and, for the first time in decades, it had to go to a vote; Greece won 32 to 22 against with 15 abstentions. I think time has proven that we were right. Bulk carrier losses have been dropping ever since. Of course, now we also have good regulations for double hull bulk carriers.

You have stated that there are two basic problems to achieve decarbonization. One is that the different regulators and the industry must start speaking the same language. For example, for the 2030 targets, IMO wants a 40% reduction in CO2 compared to 2008 emission levels whereas EU's Fit for 55 wants 55% reduction compared to 1990 emissions. You also have stated that any operational indicators leading to various energy efficiency ratings and any action to improve such ratings, for example the CII regulation, are nonsense. You also say that we must find a reliable index of energy-efficiency for ships, similar to Euro for cars, combining ship design and ship operational efficiency in real weather conditions. You claim that IMO already has the tool (EEDI_weather) but nobody seems willing to use it. Talk to me about this issue.

Yes, we have design efficiency indicators (EEDI) that do not show much about the efficiency of the ship since they are just a snapshot of what the ship can do in ideal conditions of totally calm seas. During the development of EEDI, we (Greece) made many submissions to IMO showing how to improve the index to lead to real ship design improvements. But the shipyards (Japan, Korea, China, and their allies) won. They preferred the current index because it is easy to achieve, simply by reducing the horsepower of the engine. EEDI was only for new ships being built, so in the last years, with the discussion on the need to further reduce CO2 emissions, inevitably we had to think what to do about the existing ships. You will remember the proposals to apply speed limits to all ships. Speed limits are unfair to efficient ships. It is not appropriate to demand from a new ship, which has half the fuel consumption -and thus half the emissions, to go at the same speed as an old ship that consumes and emits double at that speed. So IMO was moving toward a limit on power (EEXI) rather than a limit on speed.

But many EU countries also wanted to limit the operation of ships in other ways and came up with the idea of CII. At MEPC 76, IMO was to decide which of the two measures would go forward, EEXI or CII. EEXI had the clear majority. But, in an unprecedented move, the Chairman of the Committee decided not to leave the EU countries complaining, so both regulations went forward. CII is a stupid regulation, leading to -what I call- the refrigerator-rating for ships. You cannot rate ships the same way you rate electrical appliances. They hit bad weather which increases the fuel consumption and emissions, they have waiting times at anchorages with no useful work, ballast voyages etc. So, a purely operational index, such as EEOI or AER, is nonsense. I'm not the only one saying it. Several university studies have proven the randomness and irrelevance of these operational indices to ship energy efficiency. What you should do is devise an index like that for cars in Europe, the Euro index, where to rate a car as Euro 5 or 6 you subject it to realistic typical driving cycles that include stops, acceleration, braking, etc. at various speeds. And, of course, the regulation is on the car maker not on the driver! If we did something similar for ships, we would need an indicator rating the design of the ship based on its real-world performance. That would combine the design and operational efficiency in one index. Or, to put it differently, an efficiently designed ship is one that operates efficiently in the real waves. Well, IMO has such an index. But, as you expect, shipyards are not keen on using it. EEDI suits them fine. That index is called EEDI_whether and includes in the formula the ship's speed drop in waves of wind Beaufort 6. As you understand, a ship with a small speed drop from the calm sea speed is more efficient than one which has a large speed drop. Into that index you could also add EEDI_weather ballast condition, and you have a reliable all-inclusive Energy Efficiency index for ships. But, as I said, in many ways the preference of the ship regulators is to regulate the user of ships, not the shipyards or the engine manufacturers. We also have the EU's Fit for 55 regulation that, among others, will require from ships that come to Europe to have fuel onboard of reduced carbon content by a certain percentage every year. This is a regulation that should be applied to fuel providers, not to the ships. And, you may ask, why they don't apply it to fuel companies (or apply EEDI_weather to shipyards and engine manufacturers)? I think Mr. Panos Laskaridis said it best: Because shipping has No Votes! Shipyards are the main industry in Korea. They move governments. In Japan and China they also have huge political power. Of course, France would not want to hurt Total or the UK to hurt BP. They bring in money, they employ hundreds of thousands of people who vote. So, these members of IMO prefer to put the burden on ship operators rather than their own Industries. It's like asking a truck driver to operate his truck so as to reduce his CO2 emissions by 2% every year, no matter what, pushing him to operate his truck empty rather than loaded with cargo and putting the burden on him to find gasoline of less and less carbon content every year.

Recently you were awarded at Lloyd’s List Greek Shipping Awards the “Technical Achievement” Award, for your contribution to the technical aspects of shipping and the solutions you have developed and applied at major shipyards. What does that award mean to you?

It means a lot of course. Especially since I did not know of my nomination, so it came as a surprise. It is the second Lloyd’s List award after the “Achievement in Safety and Environmental Protection” in 2017. Both are a huge honor for me because it is a recognition by a panel of top respected judges who, with their expertise and stature, cover all aspects of shipping. When you are recognized in such a way by your industry, you get the strength and the obligation to continue to contribute back as much as you can.

In your acceptance speech you spoke to Greek shipping for the danger of the autonomous ship. You said “we must engage now in this area to prevent Google and Amazon from being the biggest and only shipowners in the future”. Please expand.

Yes, this is an area that Greeks or Greek shipping companies have not been involved in, as opposed to the North Europeans and many others in Asia and USA. I have said that, if something can end the Greek 10.000-year engagement with ships, this may be autonomous shipping. European regulators are in favor of autonomous ships and several EU-funded projects are ongoing. This is because, although Asia has dominated the shipbuilding industry for several decades due to lower-cost manufacturing, Europe has maintained a leading market in specialized, high-quality vessels and they want to keep this edge in the future. So several big projects are currently ongoing all over the world, bringing together computer and AI companies, such as IBM, with marine automation companies, shipbuilders, classification societies and major shipping companies. We, as Greeks, are notably absent and I still hear questions from Greek shipowners “how can a ship navigate in bad weather without the Captain on board”? At a time when we send unmanned spaceships to other planets, I hear arguments from Greek shipping that “this can never happen”. Well it's already happening and it's time to engage. IMO has already started the review of all its regulations to allow for autonomous shipping.

These ships will require a high technology “control AI centers” to be operated which will merge them with smart automated terminals, with on-time arrivals, and automated load and discharge. Such AI control centers are more suited for companies like IBM and Google, who are already deep into AI with huge budgets, or Amazon which is both into AI and is looking for ways to push out third parties from the transportation of the products it sells. Once autonomous ships start to compete with conventional ships, conventional ones cannot win longer term due to the higher operational cost. Plus these companies have the deep pockets to finance the higher acquisition cost, just to drive out the competing conventional ships. Just consider that the total value of all ships in the world is about $ 1 trillion and Google’s valuation is at $ 2 trillion! They could buy all the ships in the world if they wanted to. But “driving them out” is probably smarter for them and much less costly. That's why some forward looking shipping companies already engage in partnerships and pilot projects with automation companies and so on. We should not delay our involvement anymore or it will be too late I'm afraid.

The previous EU Transport Commissioner, Violeta Bulc, had said that for Europe autonomous shipping is the future. She did not expect a reduction in shipping employment numbers but a change in the type of jobs, in her opinion. And I want to link that with an EU regulation on land. In Larisa we had sugar factories where hundreds worked and the people in the area were cultivating very good quality sugarcane. These factories have closed, many became unemployed, because of the sugar production quotas for our country. And so we import sugar when we could export it instead. I mean is it to our advantage, either as a country or as individuals, to conform to all EU decisions?

I am not aware of the details of the EU quota decision forcing the closure of the sugar factories but I am aware of other decisions, such as the application of the carbon tax on electricity bills and the closure of the coal/lignite power plants. These decisions are taken many years before they come into effect but, sometimes, we wake up a year or so before their application date, when it is too late to change anything. At the time of decision making, each country can put forward their positions supported by extensive economic and labor impact studies. Did we do that? I doubt it. Germany and Poland did and they were able to get decades of extension for their coal power plants without any carbon tax on electricity bills and without penalties until recently. I want to say that many times these problems are because of our inaction or wrong action at the appropriate time, when you can shape the decision. But, in a nutshell, belonging to a Union always has pluses and minuses and so it needs to be evaluated in its totality, not by individual examples. I think there is no doubt that the benefits of being an EU member far outweigh the negatives.

In your award acceptance speech you stated “Shipping is at a crossroads facing tectonic changes, similar to those of the time of passing from sales to engines. The road ahead, with regard to which is the suitable fuel of the future, is not yet clear, thanks in part to the large amount of misinformation. All alternative fuels that are being discussed require manufacture from renewable energy in order to be carbon-free. Such an amount of renewable energy will not be available for many years. We thus need to start funding and accelerate Research into new technologies. Unfortunately, even this simple idea, a small levy on fuel, faces resistance by various vested interests. The new 4th generation nuclear technology should not be excluded as a possible means of propulsion or a means to manufacture carbon-free fuels”. Please expand on this subject and what is your view on the fuel that will finally dominate?

For many years now I have been pointing out that, just because hydrogen and ammonia do not emit any CO2 when burned, it does not mean they are green. 95% of hydrogen production comes from natural gas through a very carbon-intensive process. I am glad that, finally, this is becoming common knowledge i.e. that there is good green hydrogen (from electrolysis using renewable electricity) and blue or gray (bad) hydrogen from natural gas. This is part of the misinformation I am talking about. A hydrogen-powered ship can be much worse than a conventional fuel oil ship, in its greenhouse gas emissions, if the hydrogen it uses originates from natural gas. Similarly for ammonia and methanol. And it is extremely expensive and difficult to produce really green fuels and impossible to have all the renewable energy needed to produce the huge quantities that shipping needs. The prevailing view seems to be “let's start with LNG, gray hydrogen and so on, so we can build up the infrastructures for these fuels, to be ready for the time when we can have large green quantities of these fuels”. I think this is just an excuse to keep using natural gas which is a potent greenhouse gas emitting fuel. This will lock shipping into fossil fuels (LNG) for decades to come, with no hope to achieve the required greenhouse gas reductions. I was glad to see recently the World Bank and the International Energy Agency having the same view, also cautioning investors in LNG about “stranded assets”.

At this time, the lesser of all evils, namely the fuel with less lifetime CO2 emissions, is the conventional fuel and diesel oil. We should continue using those, while generously funding research toward synthetic carbon-free fuels, such as e-methanol which can utilize the existing bunkering infrastructure and can be burned, with a little modification, on existing ship engines. The existing bunkering infrastructure is valued at $ 1 - 1.5 trillion and the existing ships another $ 1 trillion. It would seem logical to me that the fuel of the future would be one which does not require rebuilding of all the existing ships and bunkering stations. Nuclear power can be a solution to decarbonization either by itself or by providing the huge amounts of electricity needed to produce green fuels. I am not talking about the conventional nuclear power most people know, but about the 4th generation nuclear power that is currently in the final stages of development. Fukushima and Chernobyl were 2nd generation nuclear technology. This 4th generation power is very safe, with minute amounts of radioactive waste remaining. There is no possibility of meltdown and no active cooling (water pumps) is needed. The reactors can be very small, 10 to 20 MW power, similar to the output of a ship's main engine. That's why I see it as a real possibility to help humanity with our decarbonization efforts in the next decade. Of course, safe nuclear engines will be a huge game changer. Imagine the possibilities for the naval architect if you can design a cargo ship where the power and fuel consumption is not an issue anymore. No need to stick to slow speeds. Why not make it a hovercraft to avoid ports? and so on.

As a member of the Greek delegation to IMO you have contributed to the development of many new regulations such as GBS, PSPC, FSA, but also to the prevention of others, such as double hull bulk carriers, mandatory EEOI, etc. What is the power of Greece, the number one shipping country, within IMO? Is Greece respected? Influential?

I have to be honest and say that it used to have more power than it does now. And the reason is the EU. Greece in the past was able to pass, or prevent, many regulations at IMO which were against the position of the majority of the European countries. Finally the EU got tough and required that all EU members follow a common approach within IMO. This EU common position is formed before each IMO meeting where all EU-IMO delegations meet in Brussels and the majority rules. Of course, if the issue to be discussed at IMO is already covered by a European regulation (e.g. emissions) no Member State can speak against an existing EU regulation. Not only they cannot speak against but are required to “actively” support the EU position, i.e. speak in favor. As I said before, being a member of a Union has advantages and disadvantages. However, our “influence” at IMO is still strong.

You have applied Innovations in Atlantic’s ships in cooperation with major Korean shipyards. Has the ideal ship been built yet?

No, far from it. As a naval architect it hurts me to see bathtub-shaped ships with ever-increasing drafts, intended to maximize cargo intake, with no regard to good hydrodynamics and then devise silly regulations to operate them more efficiently. The ideal ship, especially speaking about bulk carriers and tankers, should be longer and thinner than current designs. This would reduce the so-called “block coefficient'' and increase energy efficiency tremendously. But that would also require changes from the part of the ports. Someday we need to start. Decarbonization will not come with paper regulations.

During this period of pandemic, how much has the sector been affected? How do you think shipping will be post-covid?

Every aspect of shipping has been affected, some in a negative way e.g. crew changes and maintenance, some in a positive way e.g. freight rates for some ship types. The way we work at the offices has been affected, where the zoom meetings proved productive. I think it is still too soon to talk about “post-covid”. Let's see how this develops, hoping for no new nasty strains appearing.

How do you see the war in Ukraine affecting Greek shipping?

Certainly the LNG Imports to EU will be a boost for these ships, with Greeks having about 135 ships out of a total 600. It may also be good for Greece since some shipowners have invested in FSRUs needed to re-gasify the LNG to pass it to pipelines. Short-term, the stoppage of grain shipments from the Black Sea means longer routes for bulkers which also is positive. I think the war was a lesson for many, especially for Europe, never to put all your eggs in one basket. You cannot depend on Russian gas and at the same time have grandiose plans for decarbonization. On a personal level, I always tell my kids to be thankful for what they have, because life can change overnight, as it did for the Ukrainians.

Describe yourself in a few words

I will describe myself with a moto that I hold dear, and abide by, since my young age: “I must do something” solves more problems than “something must be done”.