Seafarers are absolutely integral to our industry, and to the continued integrity of the global trade system on which we all rely. Their hard work is ultimately what keeps food on our tables, the power on in our homes and the medicines in our hospitals.
As we all know, the last few years have been extremely hard for seafarers. It’s impossible not to be moved by the struggles they endured during the Covid-19 pandemic, the impacts they have felt due to the Russia-Ukraine war and, of course, the attacks in the Red Sea.
At Stena Bulk, we place a high degree of focus - alongside our crew managers at Northern Marine Group - on ensuring that we have a happy and productive crew workforce. But alongside these ongoing efforts to uphold seafarer happiness, fulfilment and safety, I think there are pertinent reflections about the future of seafaring as a profession.
In Drewry’s Manning Reports for 2023 and 2024, the scale of the challenge ahead for crew is clear. Drewry says that the current officer availability gap has widened to around 9% of the global pool – a deficit that they expect to continue through to at least 2028 based on seafarer supply and vessel numbers.
This clearly presents several risks. Firstly, it’s now more important than ever to ensure that crew are nurtured and happy – and as a result, see reasons to give their employer their loyalty.
Most pertinently, a lack of availability in crew threatens to bottleneck two factors: future fuels uptake, and perhaps global trade as a whole.
We got a taste of the potential impact four years ago during the pandemic. It’s now understood that during the initial outbreak of the virus only 25% of normal crew changes were able to happen. We all remember the effect that had on our ability to operate.
Looking at the future, some simple arithmetic seems to emerge: more ships, sailing more tonne miles, experiencing more demand for global trade, with less seafarers to do the work. We hear rumours on the grapevine from time to time that some operators are already changing the responsibilities of seafarers onboard to consolidate or cover extra roles. To be clear, they are still doing this within compliance, but it’s interesting to think that ships could be manned in a more lean fashion, with each seafarer having to do more work as a result.
The second bottleneck is around future fuels. We are already seeing from our methanol joint venture with Proman that many of the skills for future fuels are transferrable, if crew have the vessels to train on.
We are fortunate – indeed, it has been part of our strategy – to get ahead of the curve on methanol-fuelled ships because we know that there will be both a bottleneck in terms of ships to train on, and of crew to train, in the near future. Having methanol-trained crew is a huge value add, and one that we are immensely proud of.
There are opportunities ahead as well as risks. For example, I am most interested in how shifting expectations and availability of connectivity onboard mean that ships really can be ‘offices at sea’. Clearly, this technological shift will be transformative for both welfare and work onboard.
This connectivity revolution is only the first step. Connectivity will unlock a range of other technological potential, and will certainly act as the first step on the path that ultimately gets us to autonomous ships. But even in the near term, additional sensors onboard (to help gather data, mitigate risk and predict maintenance) will be streaming data back to shore through digital ‘brains’ on the ship. Will seafarers have to become systems engineers and coders as well as navigators and cargo handlers?
It would also be remiss not to mention that diversity, equality and inclusion will become a bigger factor than before. Although the current share of female seafarers remains low, there are hundreds of pieces of research that show that diversity within businesses leads to better outcomes and better problem-solving. Why would the same not also be true at sea?
In short, there are plenty of risks, but also plenty of opportunities ahead for seafarers. We need to nurture these vital key workers, recognising their influence and importance to global trade, whilst also preparing for a future when their roles look very different. This is a challenge that we are excited and engaged about at Stena Bulk, and one that I look forward to sharing more progress on in the future.
By Erik Hånell, President & CEO of Stena Bulk
August 2024