The past couple days have been very busy with learning about the local companies. Yesterday, we took a break from blogging to focus entirely on our visits at Limassol Port and all of its operator organizations (Cyprus Ports Authority, DP World, P & O Maritime Logistics, and Eurogate Container Terminal). It was really interesting to hear more about the special 25-year concessionaire agreements that the companies arranged to have rights to their sections of the port, and how each organization did something different with their port area (the first is a semi-governmental organization that regulates and manages the entire port, another handles passenger ships as well as cargo and offshore operations, one offers maritime services for all the other operators, and finally the last handles storage and loading of shipping containers).

But for today, we traveled even further out for a different port—Vassilikos Port, which is only an industrial port. I learned that this port was built by Vassilikos Cement Works (VCW), which we visited and toured as well, which still owns and operates it. The company is built around the port and uses it for essential parts of their business, such as importing vital raw materials and shipping out their finished products. The company presentation took us through the entire process of making cement (mining and importing raw materials from 5 nearby quarries, crushing the stone, pre-blending the dry stone mixture, grinding the blended mixture, preheating the ground mixture, producing clinker, storing clinker, grinding clinker into cement, storing cement, and finally selling to the local market or as exports). While on site, we also got to see multiple parts of the operations there, including the Central Control Room (where 24/7 live monitoring of all parts of the cement processing occurs), the many silos and mills (where cement and its unfinished components are stored and processed), and the port itself (where special machinery transports the exported products of cement and clinker directly to ship holds). However, the most interesting part the company was learning about all the measures in place to reduce emissions. Cement production releases a lot of carbon into the environment due to the reactions of the limestone in the heating process, so the company has taken several pointed steps to reduce their emissions as much as they can by producing less clinker overall, utilizing 60-70% of alternative fuels instead of fossil fuels, and choosing a clinker transporter machine that purposely produces zero dust emissions.

The visit also involved learning about VTTV, a energy company with their own privately-owned jetty (a long metal port-like thing in the water that allows some ships to park and load or unload necessary materials or final products) setup in the port area. The speakers talked about how they act as an essential part of the energy supply chain by storing oil at their facility until it is needed, which allows it to then act as a distributor and supply extra product (through ship, truck, or pipeline transport) when there is an inventory shortage elsewhere. I also learned about the internal logistical supply chain within VTTV (which includes truck loading, marine operations, warehousing, customs, and additional services) as well as more details about how they run their operations (like the fact that they never shut down anything even during maintenance, can handle 4 ships berthing at their jetty at once, and that these ships are berthed by large loading arms remotely controlled by operators), before getting to see the jetty and storage silos. All in all, the entire time in the Vassilikos Port area was very interesting and I learned so much about the cement and fuel industries as well as how industrial ports operate.

Our last stop for today was to the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute (CMMI), which is a relatively new facility that researches all kinds of things related to the marine field (including local ecosystems, the effects of climate change, how to improve port operations, and sustainable marine technology). I got to watch a very cool presentation that discussed many of the projects that the different divisions and centers (mainly the Marine and Offshore Science, Technology, and Engineering Center, along with the Maritime Digitalization Center and the Marine Robotics Innovation Center in the Marine Technology Division) within the organization had worked on or had still in progress (some of the most notable included a zero-emissions AI-powered marine transporter, a floating power plant, autonomous search and rescue robots, protective swarm robots that can defend a port, autonomous jet skis that clean up water pollutants, and autonomous service vehicles for marine monitoring and inspections). All the presenters were clearly very passionate about their work and their particular projects, and even explained a few more things about the specifics (since some of the research and project details that were given were incredibly complex and hard to grasp for everyone). It was evident that CMMI is also good at what they do, as they showed many demonstrations of how the technology works through simulations, videos, and diagrams, and talked about how they successfully complete their research because they secure funding from the EU, local grant foundations, or other sponsors.

I learned so much today about how sustainability and environmental-friendly practices can be achieved, especially through multiple and varied mediums, which opened my eyes to just how many different problems there are in this area as well as the many possibilities there are (some of which I could never have dreamed up) for addressing it. The entire day really highlighted how important green practices are and how prominent they are growing in terms of technology and business operations. As a marketing major specifically, this could definitely apply in my future career, especially if I went the route of working for a non-profit. Even in general, most organizations nowadays make some efforts toward cleaner and more sustainable choices, so I could end up doing promotions for a company with the angle of displaying green choices, but non-profits based around environmental protection are the most focused on this subject specifically. It could be very cool to do marketing for an organization like that (and challenging, as it may be a harder sell to viewers), and it’s something I’d never really thought about previously. After the experiences of today, however, I might just have to look into it, because it was really fascinating to learn all about!