AWT Weather Routing/Routeing: Applied Weather Technology

Top Five Ways Ship Routing Reduces Fuel, C02 Emissions, Costs

By AWT Staff

AWT has demonstrated how our ship routing services can reduce fuel consumption by five to 10 percent. So this month, we asked AWT staff members to give you their tips for using ship routing to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions:

1) Travel at More Efficient Speeds

No doubt you've heard about slow steaming, the strategy that companies are using to reduce emissions by curbing top speeds.

Along similar lines, with ship routing services such as AWT's Fuel Optimization Service, Captains and fleet managers can get the information they need to travel at slower, more constant speeds – and even a small downward adjustment in speed can amount to substantial fuel savings and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions.

The service takes into account numerous operational and environmental factors to give Captains and fleet managers speed-setting guidance along an optimum route in order to safely and efficiently achieve a desired ETA. Incorporating expected weather and ocean current data continuously along the route with built-in safety margins, the service provides the information needed to help Captains and fleet managers confidently operate vessels at their most efficient speeds during their entire voyages, helping to ensure that loading and discharging schedules are still met with the least amount of fuel consumed.

2) Leverage Long-Range Forecasts and Climatological Data to Get a Strategic Route

Many Captains use short-range forecasts for making their routing decisions, which can be beneficial in situations such as avoiding an individual low-pressure system, but using short-range forecasts without considering long-range ones and historical climate data could easily put vessels in locations where they might be exposed to prolonged adverse conditions on the remainder of their voyages.

Ships in such situations are often delayed for days at sea, causing excessive, unexpected and unnecessary fuel consumption and carbon emissions. These problems can often be avoided with strategic weather routing.

Strategic weather routing uses short- and long-range forecasts along with climatological data to evaluate the best route to minimize time en-route, fuel consumption and exposure to prolonged adverse conditions that could lead to safety issues, damage and delays.

The combination of AWT's 16-Day Forecasts and Climatological Ship Resistance Model provides the tools to strategically determine the optimum time or fuel route. Although the exact location of a specific gale or storm may not be verified beyond 10 days, the real key is determining the storm track. By understanding the intensity and where the system is developing and moving, a Captain or Route Analyst can strategically determine the best route. Then once a vessel is within three to five days of a specific gale or storm, the route can be tactically adjusted to safely and efficiently clear that individual system.

3) Utilize the Best and Latest Information about Ocean Currents

Captains who can fine-tune their routes to maximize the effects of positive ocean currents – and minimize their exposure to adverse ones – can use the currents to help them reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

AWT uses the latest technology in ocean currents – the Naval Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) combined with tidal currents at three hourly time steps. Rather than rely on tidal tables which only affect a port, and climatological Admiralty/pilot charts for ocean currents, a Captain can utilize real-time data covering the entire voyage. NCOM is the operational model of the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office and uses input from the Navy Layered Ocean Model (NLOM) and the Modular Ocean Data Assimilation System (MODAS). The model is used to support search and rescue operations and the Navy's optimum track ship routing as well as other military needs.

Using this real-time, high-resolution data now gives AWT the capability to precisely determine the direction and intensity of the current globally. This enables AWT and Captains with our onboard system BonVoyage (BVS) to adjust their routes in accordance with the currents.

One major advantage of this current data – it seems to be helping some companies to realize significant time and fuel savings on some coastal voyages, whereas in the past, such savings were mainly realized on trans-ocean voyages. Some clients have reported savings of one to five percent of fuel on coastal voyages from leveraging the NCOM data provided by AWT.

4) Check Reports on Vessel Performance

Timely ship maintenance can be critical to getting the most efficient results for your vessel operations. AWT's end-of-voyage reports provide an important assessment of a vessel's speed performance and bunker consumption, giving crucial evidence for when engine or hull maintenance may be needed. AWT's Fleet Management tools can provide the same information in near-real time, enabling the most cost-effective scheduling of maintenance. This is vital to reducing costly fuel consumption, and minimizing your environmental impact from fuel-related greenhouse gas emissions.

5) Evaluate Cargo Loading Plan and Speed Loss

AWT clients often need to know the speed loss to be expected along a voyage in order to prepare their loading plan for the ship. AWT has access to extensive historical weather data and speed loss information in relation to varying weather situations.

In the attached rather dramatic example, a ship was loaded to summer marks for a voyage from the Vancouver region to northern Japan. Unfortunately, pre-plan information was not requested until after the cargo was loaded. AWT advised our client that perhaps 10 days might be added to the voyage, but the decision was set.

The weather pattern proved to be excessively bad along the route via the summer zone. This vessel was obliged to load additional bunkers in Honolulu. A voyage which should have taken 13 days lasted 23 days, with a 70 percent increase in fuel consumption and greenhouse gases.

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