Cargo ships running on oil are cruising slowly into the sunset

Gas and other low-carbon fuels are already replacing marine oil

- DAVID FICKLING

The age of oil on the high seas could go the way of 19th century sailing ships.

(AFP)

It took months of diplomatic entreaties, cajoling and threats for US President Donald Trump's administration to get the world to delay a global price on shipping emissions. His rearguard action to prop up the age of oil on the high seas is doomed to fail, however.

That's because the decision-making that really matters is not at the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) headquarters in London, where a 57-49 majority last week agreed to defer for 12 months a vote on a penalty of as much as $380 per metric tonne of carbon dioxide. Instead, it's happening in shipyards and ports.

Conventional marine fuel oil consumes about 5% of the world's crude, as much as all the aircraft in the skies. Right now, that trade is almost certainly entering a permanent decline. Argus, an energy data company, expects 7.1 million fewer tonnes of consumption in 2027 than this year. Nothing the US does will be able to change that. That derives from both short and long-term factors. The IMO's regulations are just one, and by no means the most important.