Decarbonizing Korean Shipping (6/13): Korea's Stopgap

In an exam where the passing line rises every year, the same score earns a lower grade. Like a student who, rather than studying harder, just polishes the format of the answers, Korean shipping's first move against IMO carbon rules was not a new ship but a slow one.

The First Answer: Going Slow

Facing EEXI and CII, Korean carriers reached for slow steaming and engine and shaft power limitation (EPL, ShaPoLi). Cut engine power, and fuel use and emissions fall, meeting the standards without a new ship. In a Korean Register analysis, trimming a vessel's speed by just 6.6% cut CO2 by 13.4% and improved its CII by 11.1%. Clearing the passing line with no capital, it was a very attractive answer in the short term.

But Rewriting the Answer Sheet Has Limits

A slower ship, though, breaks schedule reliability. Global container on-time arrival fell from about 80% in 2019 to 50 to 55% in 2024. Even in CII's first grades, about 22% of 24,653 ships were already below the line, and on Clarksons' projection the D and E share climbs from 32% in 2023 to 47% in 2026. Stand still and you slide backward. Slow steaming has also already delivered about 30% of all post-1990 CO2 cuts, so the "lowest hanging fruit" is gone. Efficiency improved, but rising trade volume kept total emissions almost flat, which is why the IMO is shifting toward fuel switching and a carbon levy.

Why a Stopgap

Not for lack of knowing the answer, but because of structural constraints. First, scarce capital: still bruised by Hanjin's 2017 collapse, Korea faces methanol ships costing 8 to 12% more and ammonia ships 15 to 20% more. Second, the shipper base: Maersk used ECO Delivery to make customers pay a green premium, while Korea's short-term freight competition leaves carriers holding the risk. Third, the infrastructure gap: with no alternative-fuel bunkering in Busan, Ulsan, or Gwangyang, HMM now refuels methanol in Shanghai.

A Shrinking Reprieve

Korean Register's simulation shows that once a carbon levy takes hold, fossil-fueled ships' OPEX spikes to 60 to 80 dollars per GJ by 2050, while e-ammonia gets cheaper instead. At that point, cutting power to hold a grade becomes a bill, not an answer sheet. A stopgap only defers the real problem, and the time left to defer is shrinking every year.

The sixth article in the 13-part series "Decarbonizing Korean Shipping," co-produced by ClimateInFact (CLIF) and PLANiT.