Estimated impacts of the sulphur directive on the Nordic industry

The International Maritime Organization and the European Parliament (EP) have stated that ships must lower sulfur emissions significantly in a specific region in Northern Europe, that is, in the Sulphur Emission Control Area (SECA), where sulfur content in bunkers is not allowed to exceed 0.1 percent. The Nordic companies have been examined somewhat marginally from the point of view of the SECA-directive, and how it will affect the cost-efficiency of the industry. The research data contains information about export to four large European countries that form the biggest markets in Europe for the case mill. The transport costs (freight costs per ton) were taken from the mill database on the customer level. The actual and forecasted mill data was copied into Excel spreadsheets for analysis. Results of this case study strongly indicate that the sulfur directive has direct impacts to the economy of the Nordic bulk industry. When the bunker fuel prices increase from the year 2015 onward, it reflects directly to sea freight prices in the SECA-region. This will noticeably increase the total transportation costs per ton. The sulfur directive will be an additional cost burden for the Nordic industry, which in turn is something that from 2015 onward local European paper mills and other manufacturing industries will benefit from. The sulfur directive will probably indicate that from 2015 onward Central European paper mills and other manufacturing industries will benefit from outside the traditional business environment. The impacts of the sulfur directive will vary heavily from market to market and transportation costs from Finland to Europe can increase by average more than 20 percent in €/t; this can also be an underestimation. Profitability can drop by tens of percentage due to more expensive logistics. Logistics costs’ percentage in turnover will increase in the Nordic countries, but existing low oil price (2015) will mitigate the expected price increase of the MDO (Marine Diesel Oil) in the near future.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12544-015-0158-4
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/18668887
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2015 Esa Hämäläinen
• Authors:
  • Hämäläinen, Esa
• Publication Date: 2015-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References;
• Pagination: 13p
• Serial:
  • European Transport Research Review
  • Volume: 7
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Springer Publishing
  • ISSN: 1866-8887
  • EISSN: 1867-0717
  • Serial URL: http://link.springer.com/journal/12544
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Environmental protection; Freight traffic; Markets; Pollutants; Sulfur
• Identifier Terms: International Maritime Organization
• Geographic Terms: Scandinavia
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Environment; Freight Transportation; Marine Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01561047
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 24 2015 11:22AM