The effect of early berthing prospects on the energy efficiency operational index in oil tanker vessels

Marine pollution is one of the main concerns of our society. In order to reduce air pollution produced by ships, the International Maritime Organization has developed technical, operational and management measures. Part of the operational measures refers to CO2 emissions that contribute to the energy efficiency of the vessel. The difficulty in assessing the energy efficiency of the vessel rests with the diversity of voyage parameters, including quantity of cargo, distance and type of fuel in use. Assessing the energy efficiency of the vessel is thus not a matter of determining the absolute value of the CO2, but of providing a meaningful construct to enable tracking performance trends over time, for the same ship, a fleet of ships or across the industry. This concept is the Energy Efficiency Operational Index, EEOI. The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of a well predicted voyage on the EEOI value. The method used consists in a comparative analysis of two situations regarding berthing prospects: the real passage plan and an early prediction that supposes the vessel to arrive on time as required. The results of the study represent a monitoring tool for the ship owners to assess the EEOI from the early stage of designing the berthing prospects.