Operational Efficiency

Operational efficiency covers the measures that cut a ship’s fuel burn and emissions through how it is run rather than how it is built: slow steaming, trim optimization, weather routing, just-in-time arrival, hull and propeller cleaning, and load management. It is the operational lever of the IMO efficiency regime, measured by the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) under MARPOL Annex VI Chapter 4, in force since 1 January 2023, against the design lever measured by EEDI and EEXI. Speed dominates because fuel consumption rises roughly with the cube of speed, so a 10 percent speed cut can drop fuel demand near 27 percent. The SEEMP Part III documents the corrective measures.