Interview: heading for zero emissions with Johan Boomsma, director of Boomsma Shipping

After what Johan Boomsma himself calls a few detours in the economic world, he finally settled in shipping around 2001. That was at the company his parents set up, naturally, because he comes from a maritime family “with salt water running in our veins”. It suited him well, with his training as an economist.

Was it an easy change for you to make?

“The first thing I did at Boomsma was supervise a new construction project. That had a fair few legal and economic angles, so everything came together and I learned a lot. My brother and cousin are in the company too; at the time, they sailed with my father on our three ships. Later I grew into the role and became a co-owner.”

How did Boomsma Shipping come about?

“My parents both grew up in inland navigation and it came to the point where they decided to make a go of it as independents, sometime in 1968. By sea, sailing from Delfzijl to Hamburg – the Hamburg route. Actually, according to the rules, inland navigation vessels weren’t supposed to go through the German Bight, but they were a bit rebellious and did it anyway. You could get away with more then. Our formula for success is based on your own efforts and hard work. We’ve always been creative about using the right ships. We also saw early – as far back as 2005 – that we’d have to save fuel on our routes. Not because we were thinking about the emissions: purely the economics of it. We took measures such as making maximum use of the tonnage and not building vessels with too much power. When the fuel kept on getting more expensive, that turned out to have been a good move. Nowadays, it’s the sustainability aspect that matters.”

Innovation is extremely important in the sector and technology is taking major strides forwards. How do you see that?

“Innovation is definitely important, especially for the ships built for the area we sail in. We’re talking the Baltic region, where there’s ice in the winter. You need boats with an ice classification for that. We branched out into alternative fuels when building them, years ago now. First, we looked at LNG – liquefied natural gas – but it quickly became clear that it was a transitional fuel. The investments were too high and there were still emissions. We chose diesel electric. You see that being used everywhere. Its big benefit is that you’re better able to adjust the operational power to match the sailing profile. The 8500-tonners we’re building now need 1,000 kW to do 10 knots.”

Diesel electric still uses diesel.

“We’re doing that to get into position for alternative fuels in the future: methanol, hydrogen… I don’t know what it’s going to be. You’ve got to dream and keep looking ahead: suppose that a really good infrastructure is put together for methanol here in north-western Europe. Having two or three of methanol engines on board would be a far from silly idea if you could sail using them 90% of the time. You’d then only need the diesel when you’re sailing in winter conditions, for example, with ice. It makes you more flexible. But before we can move to all-electric sailing, the batteries will have to become way more efficient and powerful.”

On top of that, you wrote an article last year about zero-emission energy by fitting ‘VentoFoil’ sails.

“That’s right. Another example of becoming greener is fitting ships with VentoFoil sails from the Dutch company Econowind. Our newly constructed vessels are getting sails. Wind power is free, sure, but not predictable enough and that adds uncertainty to the delivery times. Whereas what we order one day has to arrive the next. So for each of these innovations, we have to think about whether it works and what we could do with it. All kinds of things are being developed – coatings, more efficient engines, fuel combinations. Wind as a secondary form of propulsion will cut emissions, at any rate.”

What role has NNPC played in your company’s success?

“We’ve been members of NNPC for as long as I can remember. They handle the liability insurance for the cargo for us. It’s a business, so there are things that go wrong occasionally and NNPC then helps us to minimise the damage. That’s good for all of us. They’re close to us, the shipping companies – like one of us, understanding our business. What we always do is discuss thoroughly what’s going to be done, so that we’re one step ahead of any problems. Short lines of communication and a practical approach – it’s a nice way of working. And I have to admit, it’s nice to be communicating in your mother tongue instead of in English.”

What’s your prediction for the future of your sector?

“First and foremost, as we’ve already said of course, it’ll be about becoming greener. We’ve all got to be involved – the whole industry has to take that step. The international agreements are tightly formulated and that presents quite a challenge. I hope that we, as a sector, will be able to tackle that. That kind of thing is quite an effort but it provides lots of opportunities too. If you don’t start thinking about it already and stay stuck in a rut with the old concepts, you’re in for a tough time. One potential risk I do see for us is the influx of staff needed to get it all done. Where are we going to get those people from, especially given the regulatory pressures? There’s already a chronic shortage of specialists. We’re not the only ones feeling it: it’s throughout the sector, for all our suppliers too.”

Finally, do you have any advice for NNPC members?

“The members know what they’re getting with NNPC. You only find out what you can do for each other when something goes wrong. For any shipping companies that don’t know NNPC: talk to them and see what they could do for you. It’s a P&I club that pays a lot of attention to all the changes and developments that we shipping companies face. In short, don’t wait until something happens – talk about it at an early stage.”