Chile’s Ministries of Energy, Transportation, and Foreign Affairs are leading an initiative to develop “green” maritime corridors, which are routes between major port centers where zero-emission solutions are generated.
Federico Bernardelli, Senior Advisor at the Office of International Relations of the Ministry of Energy and a panelist at Trans-port 2023, explained that the initiative was born in 2021 during COP26 in Glasgow, and Chile is working together with the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moeller Center for Decarbonizing Maritime Transport, based in Denmark, which is at the forefront of decarbonization in the maritime sector.
“In 2022, a pre-feasibility study was conducted, mapping out 18 potential green corridors to be decarbonized, nine domestic and nine internationals. The study was presented in December, and all stakeholders from the maritime and energy sectors were invited,” he explained.
At the beginning of this year, the decision was made to select two corridors to enter the feasibility phase. This stage starts with the creation of a public-private consortium, where different companies take charge of studying each link in the value chain that serves to fully decarbonize a maritime corridor.
“We are talking about the production of clean fuels – which are substantially derived from hydrogen -, port operations at the departure port, bunkering, ships powered by clean fuels, and port operations at the arrival port,” said Bernardelli.
In the coming days, the formation of the public-private consortium will be announced, and the study phase of each segment of the value chain, led by private companies, will begin. The goal is to finish by the end of 2024.
The representative from the Ministry of Energy stated that “then the implementation phase begins, where each company leading the segments will address the identified gaps. The objective is to have the first international green corridors operational from Chile to Europe and Asia within this decade. Potentially, it may be of great interest at a later stage to develop corridors associated with sectors with the highest level of export in the country,” he added.
Chile is at the forefront globally and is one of the pioneers in the development of these green maritime corridors.
Global Transition
Johannah Christensen, CEO at Global Maritime Forum, emphasized “the maritime industry is facing an enormous transition that is going to happen in the next two decades. We are very late, and we need to move very fast. Countries that have particular interests have an important role in helping to move the sector forward. Support in producing and supplying green fuels for the shipping sector and make it possible for the sector as a whole to reach its goals.”
Christensen said there is plenty of experimentation, knowledge sharing and learning that need to happen in this early face of the transition so public-private alliances are necessary.
“There is this idea that shipping goods in a green way is going to be more expensive but actually the impact on sectors such as cherry exports will have less impact. In high value products is going to be much easier to absorb this and in fact this will be an opportunity to say ‘we are going to be able to provide in a green supply chain’, and this is something that is demanded by companies in a global level”, she finalized.
