# Economic Feasibility of Retrofitting an Ageing Ship to Improve the Environmental Footprint
## 5 Conclusions  
The international maritime community, including the leading international institutions, are actively looking to reduce greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions from shipping. Efforts are directed in several directions, such as the design of new ships optimised in size and energy efficiency, innovations in marine engines, utilisation of residual heat, new hull coatings, reducing water resistance and alternative fuels. Optimistic plans aim for 2050 when greenhouse gas emissions are at least 50% of 2008 levels and CO\({}_{2}\) emissions will be at 70% of 2008. The last MEPC (79) started discussion on a revision of the Initial IMO Strategy that is expected to be adopted at MEPC 80 (July 2023). The more important decision on that session is the adoption of amendments to MARPOL Annex VI, acknowledging the whole of the Mediterranean Sea as a designated SOx-ECA (SECA). The amendments will enter into force on 1 May 2024 with the mandatory requirement to use fuel oil with a sulphur content of 0.10% from 1 May 2025. Recent studies show that the IMO goals can be achieved with alternative fuels that are not petroleum based. However, for the time being, the best alternative fuel in this transition is liquefied natural gas. Despite the high prices of the last year and their variability, the number of refitted and newbuilt ships is constantly growing. Analysts predict that the high prices of liquefied natural gas will not prevent this alternative fuel's introduction into operation. Along with this, carbon trading in shipping should also be considered. The Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on important legislative proposals of the 'Fit for 55' package to include maritime shipping emissions within the scope of the EU ETS and gradually introduce obligations for shipping companies to surrender allowances: 40% for verified emissions from 2024, 70% for 2025 and 100% for 2026. It is expected that this will also lead to an increase in freight rates and the issue of refitting the ageing ships to improve their competitiveness in the new conditions comes to the forefront. To answer the question facing every shipowner whether to invest in retrofitting a ship and switching to dual fuel use, a study was made on the economic feasibility of retrofitting a multi-purpose ship operating on short sea routes. After retrofitting with LNG, the economic effect of operating the ship in the Black Sea on the Varna-Poti-Varna line has been analysed, evaluating the four NPV scenarios representing Denying, Disinterested, Good and Acceptable financial cash outflow. It seems that in the present economic instability and price of LNG fuel and CO\({}_{2}\) taxes, the ship owner needs to rely on the long-term contract of buying LNG fuel to implement measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep  
Figure 7: Financial risk as a function of cash-outflow. good benefits in shipping. The present study introduces a framework that can easily be employed in analysing the economic feasibility of retrofitting ageing ships. The conducted feasibility analysis and the technical measures related to the retrofitting will be fundamental for the decision-making in implementing the retrofitting and using the LNG fuel and could be used as a risk-based asset management tool regarding the zero-pollution action for the new emission control areas that are planned to be developed in the Black Sea. However, the methodology used for the feasibility analysis demonstrates limitations in terms of the use of the global and regional information related to the shipping and retrofitting economic and financial factors, which may change suddenly depending on the economic and political conditions and consequently impact the projected trend. Conceptualisation, D.Y., P.G. and Y.G. ; methodology, D.Y., P.G. and Y.G. ; validation, D.Y., P.G. and Y.G. ; formal analysis, D.Y., P.G. and Y.G. ; resources, P.G. ; data curation, D.Y. ; writing--original draft preparation, D.Y., P.G. and Y.G. ; writing--review and editing, P.G. and Y.G.