Today was another day full of great company visits, with our first stop being the Vasilliko Cement Works (VCW) near the town of Zigi. This is a very important business on the island, as cement is the nation’s largest heavy industry and its third largest export. Here, we learned about the many complex operations for an industry of this scale, and got to see some of their many cement silos, cement mills, and truck loading centers. One interesting thing about VCW is that in addition to owning and operating their own quarries for raw materials on the island, they also employ vertical integration in their business model through owning and operating their own port. This port was much smaller that the Limassol port we visited yesterday and was an industrial port rather than one for cruises and container shipments. This port mainly utilized large conveyor belts for the bulk loading of the vessels.

The representatives for VCW’s sister company, VTTV, also spoke to us at our morning visit. This is a company that provides logistics and storage for oil products and is located right next to VCW. This is one of the 16 terminals around the world that are operated by its parent company, VTTI, which owns 28 tanks that provide 3.8 million barrels of oil storage. VTTV imports petroleum through their own jetty that can accommodate 4 vessels, saves some of it for local market fuel on the island, and mixes the rest with other products to sell again in a process known as blending.

After a great seafood lunch, we traveled back to Larnaca to visit the company I was most looking forward to see on this trip, CMMI, and it did not disappoint. This is a nonprofit research institute that receives funding from the EU dedicated to improving the maritime economy. Several of their employees spoke to us about the many projects that are ongoing across the three divisions of the institute: marine technology, marine science, and marine social science. Every project that was presented seemed fascinating with large scale applications, and made this company sound like the exact type of place I would love to work at in my career.

At all of these company visits, their efforts to work in a sustainable manner to improve the environment were very clear. At the Vasilliko port, there were many cubes of garbage being imported to be repurposed for alternative fuel for the cement production center. When asking the representatives about these cubes, he told me the most fascinating thing I have learned on the trip so far: that not only is this fuel 60-70 percent more energy efficient, but companies will even get paid to take it off of other nations’ hands. At CMMI, my favorite project that was presented also focused on sustainable energy sources, and involved using biogas for power on vessels. Going forward in my career, the principles of sustainability that I observed today will be very important when designing products as an engineer that not only help individuals, but always have a focus on the health of the environment as well.