Hey friends,
In 2022, vessels like the Norwegian Yara Birkeland—the world’s first fully electric, autonomous container ship—made global headlines. These projects signaled the start of a revolutionary shift toward crewless and zero-emission logistics.
Now, in 2025, we are past the 'hype' cycle. We have moved from proof-of-concept to real-world operation. The critical question for supply chain leaders, logistics planners, and procurement managers is no longer “Is it possible?” but “Is it a viable, scalable option for my global supply chain today, and what are the true lessons learned from these pioneering years?”
The reality is segmented: short-sea autonomy is a proven, strategic success, while deep-sea autonomy still faces significant, non-technical friction.
Lesson 1: Short-Sea Autonomy is a Proven Business Case for Decarbonisation
The operational success of vessels like the Yara Birkeland over the last three years has decisively proved the model for coastal and short-sea shipping (Grade 3 autonomy).
Zero-Emission Success: By transporting over 35,000 containers between its production facility and a local port, the vessel replaced approximately 35,000 diesel-powered truck journeys, cutting 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually.
Operational Validation: The successful execution of supervised Auto-Docking and Auto-Crossing functionalities confirms that the core technology can safely handle complex, fixed-route navigation, especially in busy coastal environments.
The Strategic Takeaway for Procurement: If your supply chain relies on road transport for intra-regional or coastal movements (e.g., between two hubs within the EU or a factory and a feeder port), maritime autonomy is a mature, sustainable alternative right now. Demand for zero-emission, automated feeder services is a powerful lever for both cost optimization and meeting your sustainability targets.
Lesson 2: The Regulatory Gap is the True Bottleneck for Long-Haul
For the vast, long-haul routes—the Trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe lanes—the vision of a 20,000 TEU, crewless behemoth remains years away. The primary obstacle is not the vessel's AI, but the slow pace of global maritime regulation.
The MASS Code Timeline: The IMO is currently developing the mandatory MASS (Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships) Code, which provides the rulebook for safety, security, and environmental compliance. While a non-mandatory code may emerge sooner, a globally agreed-upon, mandatory framework is not expected to enter force until at least January 1, 2028.
The Liability Vacuum: Without this unified code, questions of legal liability (who is responsible when an AI makes a collision avoidance decision?) and insurance coverage in cross-border trade are too complex for mass commercial adoption. No major shipowner will risk sending a fully autonomous vessel across multiple jurisdictions without clear, internationally harmonized rules.
The Strategic Takeaway for Logistics: Do not plan your long-term fleet strategy around full autonomy before 2030. Instead, prioritize Grade 1 and 2 autonomy—AI-assisted crewed vessels. These technologies (predictive maintenance, smart route optimization, and collision avoidance support) offer immediate OPEX savings, enhanced safety, and significant fuel efficiency gains today, without waiting for the regulatory landscape to catch up.
Lesson 3: The Threat is Digital, Not Mechanical
The operational phase has exposed the need for extreme resilience, which has fundamentally changed the risk profile of these vessels. When a ship has no engineer to fix a minor fault or repel a threat, all systems must be fail-safe and secure.
Cybersecurity Overhauls: Autonomous vessels are highly exposed digital targets. The primary safety risk shifts from human error to cyber threats—malicious actors gaining control of navigation or sensor data.
The Redundancy Imperative: Pioneers learned that the cost of building a crewless vessel is significantly driven by the need for total redundancy in propulsion, communications, and emergency systems, to account for a fault that no human can physically fix at sea.
The Strategic Takeaway for Procurement: Your IT/OT procurement budget must evolve. When acquiring new vessel designs, the focus must be less on initial capital cost and more on integrated cybersecurity protocols, certified redundancy architecture, and secure satellite communications (leveraging trends like LEO satellites). Digital defense is the new required feature of marine machinery.
In Conclusion
The autonomous journey is fully underway. The current reality in 2025 is that while local, short-sea logistics has been truly revolutionized by autonomous electric shipping, global, long-haul trade is still in an era of high-level automation (AI assist). The massive efficiencies promised by the crewless model will arrive, but the pace is dictated not by innovation in the engine room, but by consensus in the IMO conference rooms.
Cheers,
Fernando
⚓ Maritime Term of the Week
FPSO
This week, I want to shine a light on a truly impressive piece of maritime engineering that plays a critical role in the global energy supply: the FPSO.
FPSO stands for Floating Production Storage and Offloading. Even the name gives you a good hint at what it does! Imagine a massive ship, but instead of just transporting cargo, it's essentially a floating oil and gas processing plant, storage facility, and tanker all rolled into one.
Here’s a breakdown of its core functions:
Production: An FPSO is typically moored over an offshore oil or gas field. It receives the raw mixture (oil, gas, and water) from subsea wells. Onboard, it performs the complex processing: separating the oil, gas, and water.
Storage: The processed crude oil is then stored in vast tanks within the FPSO's hull. These vessels can hold millions of barrels of oil, acting as a massive floating reservoir until a tanker arrives.
Offloading: Once the tanks are full, a shuttle tanker comes alongside the FPSO to offload the crude oil, which is then shipped to refineries ashore.
Essentially, an FPSO is the complete, flexible solution that allows energy companies to develop offshore fields that are too deep, too remote, or too marginal to justify the cost of building traditional fixed platforms and pipelines.
Where does this come from?
The concept of using floating vessels for offshore operations isn't new, but the modern FPSO as we know it really started taking shape in the 1970s and 1980s. Before FPSOs, oil production relied on fixed platforms that were immensely costly and challenging to install in very deep or harsh waters.
The idea was to take advantage of existing technology by converting old oil tankers into production and storage facilities. This proved to be a more cost-effective and adaptable solution, especially as exploration moved into increasingly challenging deepwater environments. The first purpose-built FPSOs began to appear as the technology matured and the complexity of processing increased.
What has evolved?
The evolution of FPSOs has been remarkable, transforming them from repurposed vessels into highly customized engineering marvels:
Size and Capacity: Early FPSOs were converted vessels. Today, they are custom-built behemoths, often among the largest floating structures in the world, capable of handling vast quantities of oil and gas and providing immense storage.
Processing Complexity: The topsides (the processing plant built on the deck) have become incredibly sophisticated, able to handle more complex hydrocarbon mixtures, perform water injection, and manage various gas treatments.
Technological Integration: Modern designs feature cutting-edge systems, most notably the sophisticated mooring turrets that allow the FPSO to "weathervane" (rotate to face prevailing winds and waves) while remaining connected to the subsea wells.
Deepwater Capabilities: Perhaps the most significant evolution is their ability to operate in ultra-deep waters and extremely remote, hostile environments, unlocking previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves and pushing the very limits of offshore engineering.
Environmental Standards: Modern FPSOs adhere to stringent international standards, incorporating advanced water treatment systems, minimized flaring technologies, and robust safety protocols to reduce their environmental footprint.
From simple converted tankers to highly complex, integrated floating factories, FPSOs are a testament to human ingenuity in harnessing offshore resources. They truly embody the adaptability and scale of modern maritime engineering.
If you’d like to contribute a term for a future edition, feel free to reply to this email or send me a DM — I’d love to hear your ideas.
🧠 Wisdom Gems I Heard
If nothing changes in you, nothing changes around you.