2021: upsurge in green tug designs

The international tug industry is adapting to the growing pressures to reduce emissions in harbour and coastal towage operations and better prepare for future shipping emergencies.

Governments, authorities, shipping companies and terminal operators are applying pressure to reduce the environmental footprint of the tugboat sector, leading owners to innovate in their approach to new tenders for towage concessions and marine services.

This has led to newbuild tugs being built with lower overall emissions and, in some jurisdictions, vessels with emissions abatement technology.

Technology for removing nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter to comply with IMO’s Tier III or US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Tier 4 requirements is increasingly being used in newbuildings, enabling them to work in emission control areas, which currently are enforced around the coastlines of the US, in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.

All new tugs built to operate in these regions must comply with EPA Tier 4 if working in the US and IMO Tier III in the northern seas of Europe.

More emission control areas are said to be coming, with China setting up its own version, driving domestic owners to include low-emissions tugs in their fleets.

There has been talk about introducing emission control areas in the Mediterranean, around the highly populated Japanese coastline, in parts of Australia and in areas of the Americas from Canada to Chile.

Therefore, many tugs delivered in 2021 had emissions reduction technologies for IMO Tier III compliance, even if they operate outside existing control areas.