In the container sector, the benefits of eco shipping are so significant that orders are justified beyond what the market would need in terms of the supply/ demand balance. So argues Albrecht Grell at container ship-focused Germanischer Lloyd. Scorpio Tankers president Robert Bugbee agrees: "I don't have to believe that [eco ships] work... I know they work because we have them in the water and we see the pure empirical data." Not so fast, say others: it's important to remember that the key to eco success is the existing fleet, "which is very, very large," emphasises Kirsi Tikka, head of the European division at ABS. Indeed, there is a healthy dose of scepticism that the shipyards' claims for their new designs are as revolutionary as they would like us to believe.
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