The RMI (Republic of the Marshall Islands) Registry (https://www.register-iri.com/) has been making strides in adding more modern tonnage in its ranks, with Greek ship owners leading the way, with almost double the number of vessels, compared to the second most popular group, that of the US-based owners. Additionally, the Registry is now the leading one in terms of wet tonnage, including gas carriers, like LNG and LPG tankers. Mr. Theofilos Xenakoudis discusses the latest figures in an exclusive interview with Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide (www.hellenicshippingnews.com).

The Marshall Islands Registry is among the leading flag states within the international shipping community. Can you provide us with the latest data per segment and/or country of origin?

The RMI Registry surpassed 185 million gross tons and just over 5,000 vessels at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The fleet breakdown of country of origin is in the below table.

With regards to the wet segment, what are the figures per ship type, i.e., crude oil tankers, product tankers, etc.?

As you see from the figures provided here from Clarksons Research, the RMI Registry is leading the way with almost 76 million gross tonnage, with a strong penetrations in both the product tanker, but also the rapidly developing Gas Carrier segment.

Which has been the growth trend during the past couple of years, in terms of tonnage?

The RMI fleet has grown by about 9.07% in total tanker tonnage (crude, product, chemical, and gas) since 1 January 2019 and the overall fleet has grown by 9.3%.

With ship owners looking for the best ways towards decarbonization, which do you see as the main emerging trends, in terms of newbuilding specifications?

From a Flag/regulatory perspective, we are not yet seeing any clear or obvious trends resulting from decarbonization strategies affecting newbuilding specifications. New designs need to balance a greater priority on efficiency optimization to meet more stringent future technical design requirements, such as Phase 3 Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) reduction factors. Advances in the use of alternative low- and zero-carbon fuels are still at relatively early stages of development, and not yet at large-scale levels of deployment. As a main emerging trend, we have seen a number of ships being constructed as LNG ready or even with LNG as a fuel upon delivery. The Marshall Islands has the most experienced team worldwide in the gas sector and that’s proven by the fact that we are the largest LNG flag worldwide.

Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide