IBIA Chair – February 2025

Dear friends and fellow IBIA members,

I sincerely wish you all a happy, healthy, prosperous, creative new year. As 2024 was highly productive and expansive for IBIA, let us look forward that 2025 will follow its path and mark even more growth and success for our association.

We all look forward to the – as always – amazingly well-organised by our secretariat and hugely well-attended Annual Dinner on the 24th of February, marking the apotheosis of IE Week, where we shall also announce the host city of our 2025 Annual Convention, following the unparalleled success of our Athens one in November, last year.

We shall also become acquainted with our two newly elected board directors, following the conclusion of this year’s general elections of our association.

A separate note should also be made to our Asia Gala Dinner in Singapore, in March during the Singapore Maritime Week, which offers a wonderful opportunity to connect and for which we look forward to seeing you.

There are plenty of issues and boxes to tick going forward, all of them referred to in detail in the current issue of World Bunkering:

We get the opportunity to obtain fresh updates on all major new sources of energy, and of the prospective IMO deliberations in which IBIA is always present and particularly vocal, as you will be able to see. We are closely looking into the new submission by the industry and IMO member states on a revised levy proposal to meet the decarbonisation goals, especially as regulations on alternative fuels are progressing rapidly, including ammonia safety guidelines and permitting the carriage of B30 biofuels by bunker tankers. IBIA supports measures like CII correction factors for vessels undertaking short voyages, a sustainable fuel certification framework under IMO, and electronic Bunker Delivery Notes.

We are always assessing and evaluating the well-targeted and meaningful interventions we should be making in order for them to have the highest practical impact for our industry.

In that respect, we have had the honour of hosting in the current issue of World Bunkering the Secretary General of the IMO, Mr. Arsenio Dominguez, sharing his insights which never fail to provide an opportunity for further thinking.

Moreover, the new EU regulations of FuelEU are now a reality and we all look closely as to how they are followed, implemented and scrutinised. This requires a complex, multi-layered strategic approach by all parties involved, and clarity will always be sought.

Additionally, we never lose sight of one of the primary objectives as an association, and something for which I have been vocal from the moment I was elected as IBIA Chair: collaborations and synergies. Collaborating with IPIECA and OCIMF, we have submitted the views of the marine fuel value chain to MEPC 83 as it will consider mid-term GHG reduction measures, and more of such collaboration ventures are being contemplated as we speak.

Dear friends and fellow members, there is not a day gone by without the full commitment of our volunteering Global Board members, aiming at furthering IBIA’s impact and encompassing representation of the full marine energy industry.

Equally, the same aims are being gradually realised through the invaluable participation and assistance of all our Regional Boards and, supremely importantly, through the tireless, meticulous and dedicated work for our association by our Secretariat.

The work carried out within IBIA is ceaseless, so that its results, impact and importance become apparent to you all.

This is our mission; this is my steadfast goal.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible during IE Week, I, once again, wish you all a wonderful new year.

Best regards,

Constantinos Capetanakis

IBIA Chair