Estimating the Operational Effect of a Bunker Levy: The Case of Handymax Bulk Carriers

Market based measures concerning air emissions from ships are very likely to be introduced in the next years, in an effort to cap Greenhouse Gas Emissions from ships. A lot of countries have presented their proposals to IMO and practically the majority of them are based on a form of a fuel price penalty for the existing ships. In this paper the proposal for a Global Emissions fund will be presented and discussed as the most appropriate, easy to implement and flexible solution for an enforcement of a market based measure. At a second stage and using the emissions calculation and speed optimisation tool developed within the Laboratory for Maritime Transport of the National Technical University of Athens, simulations will be performed for a specified Bulk carrier and the corresponding to its fleet segment. A bunker levy will be implemented in the program and its effects will be studied in terms of speed and transportation work. For this purpose the tool is run for both cases, i.e. single ship and fleet segment, and for two different years 2009 and 2010 with and without the bunker levy.