From the magazine – How should a dredging contractor comply with the European Union Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (EU MRV) and Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) when they don’t transport cargo like other ships? Calculating their fuel efficiency is challenging, yet dredging vessels emit significant CO2 due to the heavy pumps, engines, and generators on board – especially cutter suction dredgers, which require high power for drilling rocky seabeds. For interest groups such as the Dutch Association of Dredgers and Hydraulic Engineers (DADH) and the European Dredging Association (EuDA), this is an important issue that is currently the subject of intense discussions with the European Commission.
In every issue of SWZ|Maritime, SWZ|Maritime’s editor-in-chief Antoon Oosting writes an opinion piece under the heading “Markets” about the maritime industry or a particular sector within it. For the March 2025 issue, he discussed the implications of the EU MRV and EU ETS for the dredging fleet with representatives of EuDA and the DADH. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher, the SWZ Foundation, the KNVTS, or other editors.
In an interview with SWZ|Maritime, Paris Sansoglou, secretary general of the European umbrella organisation EuDA and Michiel Spitzer on behalf of the DADH set out the issues. The challenges of the EU ETS for the dredging contracting industry stem from the EU’s declared intention in 2005 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry and transport.
The “large” cargo and passenger ships of over 5000 gross tonnage have already been subjected to the EU ETS since January 1 of last year, which means that shipowners must pay for CO2 emissions. The offshore sector and dredging contractors were exempted so far, but this changes from January 1, 2027. This poses considerable challenges for the dredging contracting industry in particular, as work vessels are difficult to compare to ships carrying cargo.
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Complex regulations
The delayed introduction of the EU ETS for the offshore sector, which in this case includes dredgers, has everything to do with the complexity of introducing these regulations for ships from these sectors. The EU ETS is all about reducing CO2 emissions. Fuel consumption must be recorded, and shipowners, operators or charterers must buy CO2 emission allowances for the fuel consumed. And in order to reduce those emissions and encourage shipowners or charterers to run their vessels on cleaner fuels with lower CO2 emissions, those CO2 emission allowances are becoming increasingly expensive.
The inclusion of maritime transport in the EU ETS is part of a package of climate legislation (Fit for 55). This package aims to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in the EU by 55 per cent in 2030 compared to 1990. In 2025, shipping companies will have to pay for forty per cent of their emissions reported in 2024. In 2026, this will increase to seventy per cent of the emissions reported in 2025. From 2027, shipping companies will have to pay for 100 per cent of their emissions.
So, it’s about sailing as (fuel) efficient as possible where fuel consumption is divided by the amount of cargo a ship carries. The more cargo a cargo ship, tanker, bulk carrier, ro-ro ship or container carrier carries while using as little fuel as possible, the more fuel-efficient that ship is and, therefore, the fewer CO2 emissions it emits, relatively speaking. All ships with a gross tonnage of at least 5000 arriving at or departing from a port located in the EU, as well as ships travelling between two ports within the EU, fall under the scope of the ETS.
Incidentally, at the behest of the European Parliament, the European Commission is also still investigating the feasibility of extending the EU ETS to smaller ships of between 400 and 5000 gross tonnes as well. This category of ships is already covered by the EU MRV regulations and, therefore, already has to report its emissions.
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No or hardly any cargo
But how to apply EU ETS regulations to ships that carry little or no cargo, but are primarily a tool and are distinguished by what they do, like many types of ships in the offshore sector and of dredging contractors.
For the offshore vessel category, the European Commission differentiates between a whole range of vessel types such as: anchor handling tug supply vessels, offshore supply ships, crew/supply vessels, pipe carriers, platform supply ships, drilling ships, floating production storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs), oil and gas processing vessels, floating storage and offloading vessels (FSOs) for gas and oil, accommodation ships, diving support vessels, offshore construction vessels, offshore support vessels, pipe burying vessels, pipe layers, pipe layer crane vessels, production testing vessels, standby safety vessels, trenching support vessels, well stimulation vessels, cable layers, cable repair ships, mining vessels, wind turbine installation vessels, commissioning service operation vessels, service operation vessels, work/repair vessels, research/survey vessels, dredgers and hopper dredgers.
The dredging organisations also take issue with the fact that their vessels have been classified as offshore vessels. For this does not cover the scope of their work. ‘This leads to misconceptions and confusion. We are not typical carriers like the regular merchant marine. We create our own cargo by using hopper dredgers, for example. We then leave from an extraction site to where the sand needs to be dredged or from a canal that needs to be dredged, to a place where it needs to be relocated,’ Sansoglou explains. He also points out that unlike ordinary shipowners, dredgers operate as contractors and are also subject to relevant laws and regulations.
Sansoglou: ‘Taking into account the a-typical nature of the dredging sector compared to the rest of the shipping industry, the sand we work with is not cargo according to commercial shipping definitions. That requires specific attention and pragmatic regulations.’
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Substantial challenges
The dredging contractors, therefore, note that there are considerable challenges in the implementation of the EU MRV, the system whereby ships must report their emissions, and the EU ETS for hydraulic engineering. According to the dredging contractors, the current legislation could lead to a distortion of the market, opening the door to unfair competition from dredgers outside Europe, especially Chinese dredgers. The EU ETS regulations are based on the EU MRV reporting system. This system is designed around transportation of goods and passengers.
This system does not fit the practice of dredging contracting and working vessels, says Spitzer on behalf of the DADH, which has no fewer than ninety member companies. The definitions of “offshore vessels”, “voyages” and “port calls” create challenges in hydraulic engineering that hinder the implementation of MRV in the dredging contracting industry. As of January 1, 2025, work vessels must report in MRV. Many issues are still unclear, and the underlying reporting tool (Thetis) is not yet suitable.
As an example, DADH’s Spitzer cites the following: ‘In the dredging contracting industry, it may happen that a ship leaves from an EU port for work outside the EU without calling at a port in that area (additional EU). Upon completion of the work, the ship returns to an EU port, for example to be prepared for the next project. Since the ship did not call at a port outside EU waters, this voyage falls 100 per cent under the EU ETS requirements (instead of fifty per cent in case it had called at a port outside the EU). Conversely, ships with a starting and ending port outside the EU can conduct operations without surrendering European emission allowances. This creates an uneven playing field and market distortion. Needless to say, this is a source of concern for dredging contractors.’
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Clear and pragmatic rules
What the DADH and EuDA want is clear, pragmatic and workable definitions and appropriate laws and regulations that guarantee a global level playing field. The DADH says that it is engaged in a constructive dialogue with the European Commission to develop appropriate laws and regulations that ensure workability, effectiveness and a level playing field. The DADH does this in close cooperation with the Dutch government and EuDA.
For example, the DADH and EuDA are participating in a special “Workstream emissions by offshore ships” of the European Sustainable Shipping Forum. Through this workstream, the dredging contractors with various European stakeholders are trying to help the Commission get the MRV system workable. Because this issue covers the entire spectrum of workstream ships (which is much broader than just dredging contracting), the DADH is working closely with the Dutch shipowner’s organisation KVNR.
Although the Dutch and Belgians are leading in the dredging industry, EuDA represents the interests of sixteen European
dredging organisations. EuDA has a mixed membership of companies and national associations. The Big 4 are direct members of EuDA, as are companies like Dutch Dredging, Van der Kamp, Van den Herik, and other larger European companies. Besides that, 21 European countries have EuDA member presence. EuDA’s members have a fleet totalling 750 real dredgers, apart from the many auxiliary vessels used by dredging companies.
In 2023, the turnover of the EuDA members combined amounted to € 13.2 billion. In Europe, EuDA members employ 30,000 people directly. Indirectly, supply and service companies of EuDA members employ more than 60,000 people in Europe.
At a workshop on 27 November last year in Amsterdam on the Blue Economy for the North Sea, Sansoglou reiterated the importance of the dredging sector in climate-proofing coastal areas in particular. ‘Dredging is a problem-solving and solution-oriented sector.’
Respond to this article by sending an e-mail to Antoon Oosting, editor-in-chief and author of this article: swz.rotterdam@knvts.nl.
Cartoon by Hans de Wilde/SWZ|Maritime.
