TheSwiss-based trader says it will no longer use ships ranked in the lowest two ofseven categories as rated by the Carbon War Room.
Theenvironmental group and ship-vetting outfit Rightship have categorized 60,000vessels from A to G with A being the most fuel efficient and G the least.
“Bychoosing the more efficient vessel available to us, we are making a strongstatement to the market,” Cargill said.
“We hope this actionwill demonstrate to ship owners that they can and should do more in terms ofefficiency, and that the market will reward them and will also show othercharterers the decision support tools available if they want to operate moreefficiently.”
UnipecUK, part of China'sbiggest oil trader, and US-listed chemical shipper Huntsman Corp, have alsoagreed to back the initiative.
Between them the three companies are said to charterover 350mt of commodities annually, or around 8% of the world’s cargo each year.
PeterBoyd, chief operating officer of the Carbon War Room, said: “This dealrepresents the first major capital shift on behalf of the charterers towardsmaking greater efficiency a factor in their vessel-chartering decisions.”
Cargill,which is said to have been using the system since June, are excluding shipswith F and G ratings, which account for 10 to 15% of the global fleet.
Ifits traders want to use the less efficient ships, they have to make aspecial request to Cargill’s environment and compliance manager JonathanStoneley.
“We’rea commercial enterprise and very, very occasionally you get stuck between arock and a hard place, so you have to take what you have got,” Stoneley said.
Cargillhandles over 185mt of physical dry and wet volumes a year and trades over 200mtof derivatives annually.
Headquarteredin Geneva, it claims to operate a large time charter fleet of over 300 vesselsat any one time ranging across all sectors.
Cargill,which spends about $2bn a year on bunker fuel, is already a proponent of “slowsteaming” and is also a backer of the Skysail technology.
