A recent study by the Global Maritime Forum has identified Spain as a hub for green shipping corridors towards the rest of Europe and beyond.
Global Maritime Forum’s study named ‘Green shipping corridors in and out of Spain: Assessing route-based opportunities’ highlighted the eight most promising green corridor routes in and out of Spain.
Based on the scale of trade, energy demand, dominant trade segments and policy environment, the analysis showed that the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States are Spain’s most promising partner countries for developing green corridors. The other three identified countries were Turkey, Morocco, and China.
Findings indicate that there are various deep-sea opportunities in the container segment, such as container trade between China and the ports of Barcelona and Valencia and between US East Coast ports and Valencia and Algeciras.
Short sea opportunities within Europe were also identified, such as container traffic between the ports of Bilbao and Liverpool, container traffic between Valencia and Turkey and general cargo traffic between Valencia and Italy.
Finally, two promising cruise routes were identified, the Mediterranean cruise with Barcelona as the home port and the Atlantic Spain-UK cruise route.
According to the Global Maritime Forum, there are high levels of interest and varying degrees of activity around zero-emission fuels among Spanish ports and favourable conditions for the potential bunkering of hydrogen-based zero-emission fuels across the country’s major ports.
Within shipping, the results point to opportunities in the container, roll-on/roll-off, and cruise segments. Targeting routes with cargo owners within food and beverage, car manufacturing, and textile sectors is recommended due to large volumes, high-value trade, and balanced trade flows within these sectors.
Moving forward, relevant policymakers, such as the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, should be involved in the process of developing the corridors’ implementation plans, as national, bilateral, and regional policy measures will be key to the success of the corridors.
As for green corridors, ACE Terminal and Iberdrola joined forces to create a hydrogen corridor between Spain and the Netherlands just last week. Also, Yara partnered up with Cepsa to establish a green hydrogen shipping corridor between the Spanish port of Algeciras and the port of Rotterdam.
